By: Matthew Rorie
Design: Randall Montanari It’s been almost two and a a half years since the release of The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker for the Nintendo GameCube. While there have been a few Zelda-related releases between then and now, such as The Four Swords and Minish Cap for the Gameboy Advance, The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess is really the first full-fledged home console entry in Nintendo’s flagship series since Wind Waker won GameSpot’s Game of the Year in 2003.
As you may expect, you take on the role of Link, a young hero who sets out to defend Hyrule and save Princess Zelda. In Twilight Princess, you’re fighting against the forces of shadow, which is slowly creeping throughout Hyrule, perverting the land into a twisted version of itself and changing all of its citizens into vague spirits. It’s up to you to cleanse the land of shadow, which entails - you guessed it - entering dungeons, grabbing heart containers, finding new weapons, and defeating numerous bosses.
Now that we've had time to play through the entire game, this guide now features a complete walkthrough for Twilight Princess, along with almost 20 videos (in the HTML version) for all the major boss fights. We also have a separate list of all 45 Pieces of Heart.
The GameCube version of Twilight Princess is a mirror-image of the Wii version. That means that all of the dungeon maps here are going to look like mirror images of what appear on the GameCube version. Since we wrote this guide on the Wii, if you're playing on the GameCube, you'll need to assume that when we say "west" we're telling you to go east, and vice versa. It's confusing, no doubt, but hopefully you'll be able to adjust!
Grab this piece of grass to play a tune for Epona and Ilia. It does nothing but prove how talentless you are.
There’ll be plenty of time for foolishness later, though. You have to head back to your house after the little talk that Rusl here gives to you. The day passes, and you’re summoned just before dusk by the village idiot, who requests that you help him herd goats. Oh, the ignominy! Doesn’t he know that you’re the next savior of Hyrule?
Not much to do but help him out. Take the time to get used to the game’s controls here. You have to find Epona before you can move on; there’s only one path you can currently take from this area, which leads back to the lake you were at the night before. Head there to encounter Ilia, a local girl, who’s washed Epona for you. Maybe you like your horse smelly and unclean, did she ever think about that? Ilia wants you to play a melody for her and Epona on the grasses that grow along the lakeside. If you walk over to one of the stalks near the entrance to the area and stand on top of it, you’ll get the Pick option; pick up the grass and blow it to get on everyone’s good side.
With Epona in your possession, ride her back to your house, then head through the village. Feel free to dismount and talk to everyone around, if you like; you can learn who everyone is, but you can’t head into any buildings just yet.
Shine get!
When you’re ready to help hoard goats, head up to the farm through the far end of town. The idiot is there, waiting for you to help him get the goats into the barn. It’s not difficult to do so; just put the goats between Epona and the barn, then start trying to guide them to the open door. You can hit the A button to "whoop", which will increase the speed of the goats and make them more likely to stay in front of you, but don’t abuse it; use it too much, and the goats will get angry and knock you off Epona. After a simple fence-jumping exercise (hit A to dash towards a fence and Epona will automatically jump it, given enough lead time.)
You can hit the hay by jumping over the gate leading back to town; you’ll automatically warp back to your house, and it’ll be the next morning when those damn kids from next door wake you up with their yelling and shouting. Kids these days...in my day we’d give them a good thrashing, the little brats...
Head outside your house and speak to all the kids in the area. You’ll learn from them that Colin has made a fishing pole for you (his mom is holding it) and that a slingshot has gone on sale at the store in town. You’re going to need 30 rupees to buy the slingshot, so start looking for them! You can find rupees standing free in the game world, but for the most part they’ll be found by picking up stones and pumpkins and throwing them.
When you head into the village, you’ll learn of a number of troubles that have beset the villagers. Colin’s mom is worried about a baby basket that has floated downstream; the shopkeeper’s cat has run away; and one of the other villagers wants to knock down a beehive above his house. You’ll need to take on each of these tasks in order to obtain the items that they reward you with.
A precisely aimed bird will help you nab the basket monkey thief. Person.
Colin’s mom will be the first task you should polish off. Talk to her to learn about the basket, then speak to the guy on top of the earth pillars in the middle of town to learn about climbing up and jumping around. You don’t need to actually jump from the pillar to move on to the next one; just run towards it and you’ll move on. He’ll also tell you about picking reeds and whistling in them.
Jump onto the house roof here and reach the farthest pillar out in the water. More reeds grow here, so pick one and blow it to summon an eagle. If you point the eagle directly at the monkey that’s hopping up and down in the distance, near the end of the water, you can press A to send it out; it’ll grab the bonnet from the monkey’s hands and bring it back to you. Jump from pillar to pillar until you reach dry ground, then drop down and bring the bonnet back to Colin’s mom. If you walk her back to her house, she’ll reward you with the Fishing Pole.
Now that you have the fishing pole, you can feed the cat that’s run away from the shop here in town. You can find the cat on a pier near the water wheel. Run over to it and equip your fishing rod. (To do so, hit the - button, point at the rod, and hit B.) Using B will equip the rod, then hitting B again will throw the lure out into the water.
After the lure goes all the way down into the water, you can gently pull the remote control backwards; don’t go exaggerated and fling it over your head. If you get the "Fish On!" prompt, keep it pointed upright until you reel the line all the way in, and you’ll have your fish. (Honestly, it seems kind of random as to whether you get a fish on the line or not when the bobber goes into the water, but if you keep trying this action, and simply wait ten or fifteen seconds after the bobber starts to dip before pulling it out, you’ll eventually nab a fish. Don’t worry; you won’t have to do this very often in the game.)
You’ll probably need to grab two fish here for whatever reason. After nabbing the second small fish, it’ll fall off your line in front of the cat (make sure you’re fishing from the correct pier; the cat should be right nearby when you’re fishing), who will grab it and run back to the store. Follow it to find the owner right perky; she’ll give you half a jar of milk and will allow you to buy the slingshot for 30 rupees. If you don’t have enough, try smashing more pumpkins, or explore the town more thoroughly. There’s a ten rupee piece atop the mayor’s house, for instance.
If you walk over to the house across the way from the store, you’ll be able to use the slingshot to knock down the beehive way up in the tree above it. No special rewards for doing so, but you will be able to walk up there and collect 15 rupees if you didn’t do so on your first trip through town. You can also drink the milk that the store owner gave you and use the bottle to collect some bee larva, if you wish. It acts as fishing lure.
The only other minigame in town is available if you talk to the mayor, who’ll enlist you in stopping rogue goats that are attempting to escape the farm. It can be deceptively difficult to hit the A button at just the right time to do so.
Before you head inside, talk to the girls for a makeshift slingshot lesson. When you’re done with it, be sure to lock onto the spider on the ladder leading to your home and shoot it before heading up. When you reach your house, open the chest in front of you to find your Wooden Sword. Yay!
’Please, sir! May I have another!’
Talk to the girls outside and tell them you’ll show them all about swordplay. They’ll give you a rundown on the basic sword attacks that are available to you.
Horizontal Slice: Shake the Wiimote from side to side. Vertical Slice: Shake the Wiimote up and down. Stab: Hold Z to target, tilt the nunchuck analog stick forward, and shake the Wiimote. Spin Attack: Shake the nunchuck from side to side. Jump Attack: Use Z-targeting and press A.
After slashing your way through combat training, a monkey will come and lure all the little children out towards the lake area where Ilia washed Epona. You’ll have to head past it, into the Faron Woods, to find the monkey and the last child, Talo, that’s been chasing it. Unfortunately, there’s a gate in your path, so head back and mount Epona to follow the path. When you reach the cave that Epona refuses to go into, take a left and head into the clearing there to find a hippie salesman. Damn hippies! This one’s all right, though, as he’ll give you a lantern for free, all as part of a ruse to sell you lantern oil when you run low. An astute economist, this one. Little does he know that you’ll take his lantern and buy your oil at Walmart for 75% of his asking price! Sucker!
With the lantern in hand, head back to the cave and walk inside. You’ll have to kill the Audrey II outside the cave; just lock onto it and swing that Wiimote to do the honors! It’ll drop a seedpouch; grab it and throw it to restore your slingshot ammo. In the cave, swing your lantern at the stone pillars to light them up as you move along. You’ll also need to use it to burn through any spider webs that you spot. When you come to a fork in the path, head right to find a chest with a 10-Rupee spot in it before moving further down the path to reach another exterior area.
Five pieces? What the hell? All our Zelda math is going to be screwed up now.
There are plenty of monsters here for you to fight, so feel free to get after them with a vengeance. For the most part, simple slashes will kill them quickly enough, but don’t forget your jump attack and spin attack. The spin attack is also handy for cutting patches of grass down, since they’ll sometimes restore your health. There’s also what appears to be a jumping puzzle on the western side of this area, but before you frustrate yourself trying to jump it, take our word on it and just ignore it for now.
The gate in the southeastern corner of the zone is locked, so head through the northeastern passageway to find a small cave. If you open the chest here, you’ll gain the Small Key, which you can use on the locked gate in the previous area. Lighting both of the pedestals on either side of the chest will reveal another, hidden chest, which contains your first Piece of Heart. You’ll need to find five of them to make a full new heart container.
You may need more lantern oil before heading into this next area. Well, you actually won’t, but if you want some, you can return to the hippie for a refill, but it’ll cost you 20 rupees. Or, you can just unlock the gate leading to the Temple and grab some oil from the parrot-vendor there; it’ll cost the same amount of money. You can even get away with stiffing the parrot of his fee, but he’ll attack you if you attempt to visit the shop again. You can appease his wrath by dropping the money into the box underneath his perch.
When you’re ready to free Telo, head up the ramp towards where she’s being held prisoner, defeat the monsters, then slash at the cage until she and the monkey are free. With that done, you’ll return to the village and make ready for your trip to Hyrule, but not before herding some more goats! There are 20 of them in all this time, and your target time for getting them all in is three minutes. You don’t appear to get anything special for beating that time, though.
So these guys get kidnapped and probably killed...who exactly loses here?
Before you head out to Hyrule, Ilia horsenaps Epona and takes her to the spring for some special rubbing. Whoa now! Before you can follow her, you’re forced to let some of the rugrats borrow your wooden sword. Way to be responsible there, Link. Now you’re going to have to answer for all their splinters.
Anyway, hand the sword over and head down to the spring. Ilia won’t let you through the gate, but Talo will fill her in on the deets. You have to crawl to them through the little tunnel that can be found in the small clearing near the exit to your house in order to make it to the spring. Just head back to the path leading to your house and check the eastern wall to find the tunnel. After all this trouble, Ilia basically insults you by telling you not to try and do anything too hard for you while you’re on your journey. Man, if we were Link, we’d give her what-for for all this running around, but apparently all he can do is stand there, mute.
Yep. You’re a wolf. Why? It never really gets explained, as far as we can tell.
Move into the other cell here, hold Z to target the chain, then hold A to jump at it. That’ll open the gate leading on. Head downstairs and use your animal senses to talk to the soldier’s spirit. There are a couple of chains in this area; biting them will open up the corridors nearby, and one of them will raise the water level, allowing you to pass over the spike trap. In the next area, you’ll have to find another chain to bite to lower the water level again, allowing you to pass under a gate and regroup with Minda. Be mindful of the enemies here, as they take off a full heart when they hit you, and you only have three to work with. The tight quarters make combat somewhat difficult, and you can’t attack in the water, so try not to get too frustrated if you die once or twice.
Enter the small passageway on the left side of the floor near the grate after the water’s been lowered to reach Midna. The spiral staircase nearby is going to feature some rocks that break underneath your feet, but Midna’s the girl you need to get up top; when you hear her voice prompt on your Wiimote, press up on the d-pad, target her with Z, and hit A to warp to her position. Keep repeating this until you reach a rope, which you’ll have to tightwalk across.
At the top of the stairs, you’ll have to kill a couple of bats. There’s some stone rubble nearby; get on top of it and Midna will warp you up to the flapping door up top.
You’ll come out to the upper reaches of what is quickly revealed to be a warped version of Hyrule Castle. You have to head across the spires here, fighting off vicious birds. The birds are best tackled with your Z+A lockon leap attack; wait until they get low before striking them, and make sure you don’t fall off the castle! When you reach the tiled roof on the far side of the area, stick to the middle of the roof and climb up to move on.
Inside the castle, you’ll meet up with who else but the Twilight Princess. She’s basically an exposition machine for the moment, as she’ll give you the rundown on what precisely happened to Hyrule to turn it into such a nasty place. She’ll ask you to leave before the guard returns. After heading down the stairs, you’ll automatically get warped back to Hyrule.
Get close to these guys, but not too close, to overhear their conversation.
But...oh, dip! Midna didn’t change you back into human form! That little rat. She wants you to find her a sword and a shield before she changes you back. That little extortionist. Nothing to do but head back towards Ordon Village. After you kill off the enemies outside your home, you’ll be told, by a squirrel of all things, that you now have the ability to talk to animals.
Head into the village proper to learn that all of the children have been kidnapped. Sucks to be them. Anyway, to find the sword and the shield, you’ll need to head towards where the Mayor and the idiot are talking, in front of the house with the waterwheel on it. To overhear their conversation, you have to creep up slowly towards their location and hit the A button to listen in every couple of steps. If you listen from too far away, you won’t be able to hear anything; if you get too close, they’ll spook, run inside, and won’t return until you leave the area.
Tip: Your Senses can be used here to find holes that you can dig up treasure in. There are a few of them near the pier where you caught the shopkeeper’s cat a fish. Try it!
After overhearing the conversation, you know that you have to get into the house with the waterwheel. Unfortunately for you, one of the villagers is going to be guarding the waterwheel itself by standing on one of the pillars and throwing a hawk at you. You’ll show him who’s boss, though...you’ll show all of them! Get a start by running over to the shop and stand on the small rock near the pet door; this is where Midna needs you to be before she can get you up on top of the house. Jump from there to the pillar where the man is standing, and he’ll be scared off into the night, where some other monster will undoubtedly rip him limb from limb.
Head into the house here and drop down to the living room. If you stand on the table, Midna will get you up to the upper level of the house. Dash into the wall underneath the shield a couple of times to knock it off the wall, then grab it and climb out the window nearby to get out of the house.
The sword you need is in Rusl’s house, where you delivered the basket to the pregnant woman earlier in the game. Rusl will patrol through the town, very slowly, at this point. He’ll attack if he sees you, and will warp back to the house if you scare his wife. No matter, though. Head around to the southern side of his house and use your Senses to check for a weak spot in the ground near the lumber pile; digging there will net you access to the house. Grab the Ordon Sword from the couch, then dig back outside.
Get used to using this B-button power to finish off shadow beings.
Midna wants you to head back to the woods at this point, so do so. When you reach the spring, though, you’ll be called by the spirit of the wood, which will force you to face off against a demonic creature of the dark in one-on-one combat. Nothing too difficult here: just lock on with Z, press A for a jump attack, then repeatedly hit A to gnash away at the beast while you’re grappling it. Be sure to avoid its slashing attacks, but that shouldn’t be too hard since they’re so slow.
With the beast out of the way, you’ll be confronted by Ordona, one of the four light spirits of Hyrule. (We heard she tried out for the latest Miyazaki movie but got turned down and had to do this game instead.) She’ll set you on your task: find the three other light spirits and help restore their light, which has been stolen by the shadow beings. We were hoping she would tell you to find some nice female wolf and settle down, make a family, but apparently that’s not in the offing.
With that interlude in the past, head down to the twilight door and proceed through, courtesy of Midna.
Head forward and talk to the glowing light above the waterfall here. It’ll give you the Vessel of Light, which you need to fill with the tears of the light spirit in order to banish the twilight once and for all. The tears are in the possession of numerous insects scattered throughout the woods; you’ll need to use your Senses to detect them when you reach their position on the minimap.
The first couple of bugs will be easy to get to, but some of them will be devious. There are a couple in the house near where you obtained your lantern; use the ramp to the south of it and Midna will be able to get you up to the window from there. Use your Senses to talk to the spirit inside to reveal the two insects. There’s also one on the outside of the house; ram the wall underneath it to knock it off and take it down.
Head back to the gate nearby and dig your way underneath it; the path is clear when you’re in Sense mode. Two more bugs are right near it. When you get through tunnel here, you’ll come out to the swamp you were in earlier. The bottom of it is filled with fog; falling in will warp you back to the entrance. Two bugs are near the western wall here, so ram the wall to get them off, kill them, then head to the rocky outcropping nearby and use Midna to warp your way across the branches.
Plenty of bugs to kill here in the woods!
Remember that jumping puzzle we told you not to bother with before? Well, you can bother with it now that you have Midna along to ease your jumping. Hop down into the bowl-shaped area in the middle of the swamp and kill the bugs there, then follow the path along until you head way up into the branches overhead. You have to time your jumps right to get past the man-eating plants; just hold down Z and tap A as quickly as possible, and you should be fine. Dodge the swinging tree stump up top, then hop down to the last bit of land in the swamp. The two bugs here are underground; flip your senses on, get close to them, then dig when you’re prompted, and they’ll pop up, ready for the killing.
Head into the last area of the woods, where Telo was held captive by the monsters, and kill the two bugs in that same area to fill up your Vessel of Light. Doing so will warp you back to the spring, banish the twilight, and return you to human form. You’ve been made better...stronger...faster...or, at least, you’ve been given a change of clothes.
Feel free to return to the village, if you wish. All of the kids have been kidnapped, blah, blah, blah. What a bunch of whiners. You can use your lamp in the basement of your house to find a 50 rupee piece.
But no, your real goal now is to reach the Forest Temple, which is located in the area beyond where you found Telo and the monkey earlier. You’ll need to speak to the hippie again to get a key that unlocks the gate leading to the temple, but he’ll also sell you a bottle of oil for 100 rupees. Worth it, if only to obtain the bottle.
When you reach the swamp again, you’ll find that it’s still filled with fog. Equip your lantern and take it out, then walk along the pier, only to find that the monkey is still in the area, and wants it for himself. Not to worry, though; he’ll guide you along the swamp floor, through the fog, so long as you stick close to him and protect him from any enemies that attack.
When you pass by the parrot’s shop again, you may want to fill your lantern with the oil bottle, then buy more oil from the parrot. Just a suggestion; it might come in handy to have a bit of oil in the Forest Temple. Before you can get inside, though, you’ll have to go through a tutorial with a wolf/skeleton/spirit guide person, who’ll teach you the Hidden Skill: Ending Blow. With that done, burn the spider web in front of the temple and head inside.
In the first room here, kill the spiders on the vines to your left with the slingshot, then climb up and grab the Yellow Rupee from the chest. You’re going to probably hit your current maximum rupee limit by the time you leave the dungeon, but every little bit helps. Also note that you can roll into the small totem poles in this area to knock the items atop to the ground; this will come in handy in a couple of instances during the dungeon run-through.
After killing off the enemies here, swipe away at the monkey cage until you free the simian caught within. Prepare to enter hell. Apparently the designers couldn’t be content with simply giving you one of the most annoying helper characters in Zelda history (right behind Tinkle); they also had to make a dungeon that forces you to hear monkeys constantly chittering as you attempt to play through it. Oh, man, if we could only explain how aggravating this is. Feel free to mute your TV while you have monkey companions, because it gets to be pretty aggravating.
Follow our ghetto map to know what rooms we’re talking about in this walkthrough.
Anyway, head into the next room to the north, Room 2 if you’re checking our low-rent map. This is a hub room, with three exits, to the north, west, and east. You can find a secret chest here by staying on the ground and checking out the northeastern corner of the room. There are small creatures that pop up out of the ground here and attempt to leap at you; if you block their attack with your shield, they’ll fall back over onto their backs and eventually explode. You can pick them up before they do so, though; grab one of these guys and throw them at the large rock wall on the northern side of the room, near their hole, and you’ll reveal a chest with 20 rupees.
If you head on up to the platform in the center of the room, you’ll face off against a large spider. These guys can defend against most of your attacks, but if you simply hold the Z button down and wait for them to rear up and prepare to strike, you can unleash a flurry of blows and defeat them. Light the four pyres here to raise a wooden walkway, then head across and open the chest here to find the Dungeon Map. (Note that you can’t reach the chest suspended above the platform just yet.) Head through the door to the north to reach Room 3, but you’ll be stopped when the chimpanzee across the way slices the cords on the bridge with his mighty boomerang. Guess what you’ll be stealing from him later on?
Your goal now is to track down and free enough monkeys to cross the bridge via the rope that hangs alone the two posts connecting where it uses to lie. You have one now, but you’ll need a total of four to make the crossing. Head back to Room 2, then let the monkey suspend itself from the rope leading to the west. Leap over to it and press A at the right time to jump across to the platform leading to Room 4.
As soon as you enter Room 4, take a right and block the explospider there with your shield. It’ll bounce backwards, in front of the rock wall nearby; when it blows up, you can smash the jugs inside to reveal Ooccoo, a creature that will let you warp out of dungeons. She won’t be very useful in here, but she’ll be handy in future dungeons. The monkey will lead you to a locked door in this room, but you don’t have a key! You have to leave the monkey behind (thank god), and head north to Room 5, where you’ll find a Small Key. With that in hand, return to Room 4 and unlock the room the monkey points you toward. (Note that there’s a chest with some Rupees in it hidden in this room; drop into the water and search the southwestern corner of the room to find it.)
In Room 6, drop down to the floor and roll into the central pillar a few times to free the monkey there from its cage. There’s another chest here, hidden away under the wooden walkway. When the monkey’s free, you’ll be able to swing along the ropes back to Room 4.
Remember kids, smoking kills.
Head back to Room 2 and from there, proceed east into Room 7. There are two monkeys in the rooms to the south and east of this room, but to reach them, you’ll have to find some way to destroy the large plants that are blocking your path. Begin by heading up the stairs near you until you find another explospider. Block it with your shield, then run along the walkway to your north until you’re directly above the first plant; Z-target it and toss the spider with A to throw it into the plant’s jaws, which will destroy it. Return to the explospider, block another one, then run and jump across the gap you just freed up before throwing the spider towards the rock on top of the nearby platform; that’ll blow up, revealing the path to Room 8.
In Room 8, drop down and roll into both of the totem poles near the entrance; one of them will drop a chest containing a Small Key. Cross the walkway in the center of this area, being careful to avoid the worms that dwell underneath some of the tiles, and light the two unlit lamps to raise the stairs leading to the monkey’s cage. (Yes, there’s a chest underneath the stairs, but you can’t get it yet. You can climb the vines on the north side of the room to find one on the platofrm there.) Unlock the monkey and deliver it back to Room 2.
The entrance to Room 9 is to the south of Room 7; it should be easy to find.
Tip: You can find a Piece of Heart in Room 7, near the exit to Room 9. There’s an explospider nearby; block it, then bring its body over to the gap in the walkway above the plant way down below. Don’t attempt to z-target it; just stand at the gap and hit A to drop the spider down on top of the plant. It’ll explode, revealing a chest containing the Piece of Heart.
Room 9 features another man-eating plant. This one, however, combines the head of a man-eater with the body of one of the explosive-loving plants from Room 7. It’s not difficult to kill; just get in range of its attack, hold Z to block and target it, wait for it to strike, then counterattack with your sword to kill it. When the head is dead, Fred, grab an explospider and chuck it into the body to reveal the Small Key. Free the monkey and return to Room 2. With all four monkeys in your retinue, you’ll finally be able to pass north through Room 3 to Room 10, where’ll fight for the Gale Boomerang.
Unfortunately for you, the orangutan prefers to let others fight for him; he’ll continually cut down man-eater plants from the ceiling, which will attack you, while he dances around on the totem poles in the center of the room. The man-eaters are easy enough to dispatch, but attacking the orangutan will require a bit of finesse. As he moves from totem pole to totem pole, continually z-target him to keep an eye on where he’s headed; he can be a pain to track otherwise, since he’ll so often jump off the screen.
When the orangutan pauses to throw the boomerang from atop one of the totem poles, ram into it with a rolling move; if you’re lucky, you’ll trip up the beast, causing the boomerang to come back and hit him in the chest, dropping him to the ground. When that occurs, z-target the orangutan’s butt and start flailing away at it! It’ll eventually get back up and repeat the procedure, but after three or four rounds of this, you should be able to polish the animal off and grab your boomerang.
Now that you have the boomerang, use it on the windmill above the door to unlock it; you’ll need to hit it at least three times. With that done, return to Room 3 and use the boomerang to adjust the windmills atop the walkways so that you can cross to the east. Another monkey is in a cage here; use the boomerang to cut the spider’s silk on top of the cage, and it’ll come crashing down.
With the boomerang in hand, return to Room 8, where you originally encountered the worms that lived under the tiles on the floor. Use the wind of the boomerang to put out the fires in the two pyres here; that’ll lower the stairs leading up top and let you obtain another Piece of Heart. You can also find the Compass in Room 2 by chopping down the chest that’s suspended from the ceiling there.
Return to Room 4 and check out the southwest corner of the room, where a large chest is obscured behind a gate. In order to unlock the gate, you have to use the boomerang on the four windmills atop the nearby pillars. (You can queue up targets with the Z button while you aim the boomerang.) You can’t just hit them at random, though; you have to follow the Z-shaped pattern on the floor. For instance, you can go northeast pillar - northwest - southeast - southwest, or the opposite. When you hit the pillars in order, you’ll unlock the gate and obtain the Big Key.
Head north from here to Room 5, where you’ll be able to use your Gale Boomerang to move around the central walkway. Move up north to Room 11, where all the monkeys are waiting for you. Eventually they’ll be able to help you across to the boss room up north, but not until you manage to save all of them; there are still a few more to go. Use the walkways and your boomerang here to move over to the eastern side of the room and head into Room 12.
One throwable spiderbomb, coming up.
Room 12 has a number of obstacles for you to bypass, most of which will require you to use the explospider on the floating platform in the water. The only problem is that the platform is in the water! How the hell are you going to get out there to pick up a bomb?
The answer, of course, is that you won’t. First, chuck your boomerang at the explospider and let it go; it’ll bring the spider right back to you, ready to throw. (If you have a hard time getting a bomb because it hits the wall and blows up, try throwing your bomb from a bit further across the room.) If you throw it at the eater-plant on the south side of the room, you can gain a Small Key. If you grab another spider, you can break the block on top of the vines on the eastern side of the room by throwing the bomb at the block just before it explodes. (Wait for the bomb to start flashing and for the sound to get higher.)
With the Small Key in hand and one more monkey free, return to Room 5 and head east into Room 13. There are three holes in the ground here, and two of them are covered with spider’s webs. If you stand on them with your lantern and press B, you’ll burn through the webbing and drop down. Do this on the northernmost hole to fall down to a platform with a monkey cage on it; break the cage, then climb back up the vines to return to the upper room.
Head back to Room 5 and unlock the western door leading to Room 14. Proceed through the small cave here and climb the vines to find the last monkey; use your boomerang to hit both of the windmills above its cage to free it.
Head back to Room 15, where the convocation of monkeys will make a huge chain stretching from the ceiling. Take your boomerang and aim for the uppermost monkey to send them all chittering to their deaths.
Just joking. No, you have to keep the monkeys alive for the moment. Jump out to the monkey as it swings towards you, then hop off when you reach the farther side. Smash the bottles outside the door to find a Fairy; fill up your lantern with oil and trap the Fairy inside the empty bottle.
When you unlock the door leading to the boss room, you’ll be facing off against Diababa, which consists of two man-eating plant stalks suspended in the water in front of you. They attack you (after shaking their heads) by lunging at you from the distance; it’s easy enough to avoid these attacks by rolling out of the way when you see their heads shaking. It’s also easy enough to destroy the heads, at least temporarily; use your gale boomerang to grab an explospider from the floating logs and queue it up into their mouths. Doing this for both heads will send them crashing into the water, ending the fight...or does it????
Well, no, it doesn’t end the fight, as the beast disgorges the two heads from the water again, along with a third, larger head. The explospiders are also removed from the equation, but not to fear; the orangutan you defeated earlier is back, and is now insistent on helping you out, by sweeping across the playing field with an explospider in its feet.
In order to finish the Diababa off, you have to nab the explospider from the orangutan’s feet as it swings by, then queue up the largest head of the beast as your next target for the boomerang. If you have a hard time getting the orangutan targeted, just point your boomerang at the rope it travels along and wait for it to pass by your targeting cursor before hitting the Z button to queue up the bomb. When you manage to deliver an explosive to the central head of the Diababa, it’ll crash down to your platform, letting you target the central eye and strike at it with your sword. After a couple of rounds of this, you’ll finish the creature off, and net yourself a shiny new Heart Container! Speak to Midna to warp yourself out to the fields outside the Temple when you’re ready to do so.
Head west towards the exit; you’ll nab a piece of mail from the creepy mailman before you manage to reach it. He’ll periodically visit you with letters from this point forward, so be on the lookout for him!
When you leave Hyrule Field, you’ll be turned into a wolf. You’ll find Telo’s sword down the path a bit; sniff it to learn the scent of the village children, then use Senses mode to highlight the scent on your screen.
You’ll have to destroy three more shadow creatures (using your B-button power) before you can cross the bridge here - only thing is, there’s no bridge to cross! The shadow creatures have sent it through one of their portals to trip you up, so let Midna warp you to the N. Faron Woods portal. The bridge is leaning up against a rock wall right near where you wind up, so walk over to it, speak to Midna, and have her warp it back to Eldin so that you can cross over it. Follow the scent to a gate to the west, then dig under it with Senses to reach Kakariko Village.
Damn shadow creatures!
It can be difficult to get the three shadow beings here into your B-button circle all at once; one of them will keep its distance from the other two. In instances like these, it helps to simply lock onto one, attack it until it dies, then use your B-button shadow circle to kill the other two at the same time. You’ll still wind up killing all three.
When the shadow beings are dead, speak to Eldin, another spirit of light, in the lake nearby to receive its Vessel of Light. You know the drill: you need to track down all of the insects that have attached themselves to the tears of light that were shed by the spirit because it got so emo, or something. Time to track them down; most of the insects are actually inside the houses in the village. All are marked on your map, so get to work.
Begin with the house in the southwestern corner of the village, where the southernmost insects are located. If you circle around the building, Midna will show you a path you can take to leap up to the building’s roof. Drop down through the hole up there and activate your senses to reveal that the village children are here, in the "real world" version of the town. When the cutscene’s done, grab the stick from the ground, run up to the flame to set it alight, then jump past the candles on the upper level of the room to light them. Doing so will net you access to the cellar, where you’ll find the first three insects for your collection. When you reach the exit from the cellar, you’ll find yourself in the town’s graveyard, where the fourth insect is underground. Light it up with your Senses and dig it up, then attack it to add it to the Vessel.
Return to Kakariko Village and start tracking down the rest of the tears. If you go from south to north, here’s how to obtain them. Many of the buildings will have signs outside of them, if you’re having trouble identifying them.
General Store: Walk through the gate on the ground floor here and find the small hole in the bottom of this building. Find the insect, kill it, and exit through the same hole.
Elde Inn: Walk up the ramp to the south of the general store and jump across to the hotel’s balcony. Drop down to the floor below you, grab a stick from the fireplace, light it by jumping from the table across to the torch nearby, then Place it back in the fireplace to roust the insect in the chimney. Another insect can be found by entering the hotel’s main lobby and taking the stairs up to the guest room above.
Residential House: On the western side of the street, a house contains another insect. Travel two houses to the south and find a small ramp you can hop onto, then jump from roof to roof until you reach the roof of the house with the insect inside. Drop through the weak part of the roof, then push the wooden crate towards the wall to reveal the insect. Midna will let you jump outside when you’ve killed it.
You’ll need to find some nooks and crannies to get into the houses here in town.
Barnes Bomb Shop: Head to the building just north of this large structure and climb up to the roof. You should be opposite a window on the Bomb Shop building; dash into it and you’ll smash through and wind up inside. Head upstairs and ram into the bookshelf that the insect is hiding to release it, then climb up the shelving to reach the building’s exit.
The Northwestern Hills: When you climb out the window leading to the top of the bomb shop, take a left and you’ll come out to the hills above town. To the northeast there’s a building with a diggable entrance where one insect is to be found. To the west, there’s a building marked "Danger!" It seems like the wisest option here is to grab a stick from the ground, set it alight at the torch nearby, then attempt to light the fire in the fireplace. Doing so, though, will blow up the entire building. Quickly exit before this happens, then grab the tears from the wreckage.
Death Mountain: If you head north to the edge of town, you’ll come to a tunnel leading towards Death Mountain. It’s probably a bad idea to head up there, right? It’s got to be called Death Mountain for a reason, right? Well, you don’t have a choice. Head on up towards the mountain, using Midna to hop the first set of obstacles, and you’ll find a series of geysers. The first of the three insects in the area is underground here, so dig it up and kill it.
Tip: The Howling Shrine in the middle of the geyser area will be the first that you encounter in your journeys. In order to interact with it, you first have to listen to it, then repeat the melody it tells you. To howl, hold down the A button and use your analog stick to replicate the pitch of the tune. You have to sing High - Mid - Low - High - Mid - Low here, which corresponds to holding the analog stick Up - Neutral - Down - Up - Neutral - Down while holding down the A button. It can be complicated to perform the song, but when you do, you’ll be able to repeat it for the ghost wolf, who’ll tell you to meet him back in the Faron Woods so that you can learn another Hidden Skill.
Head north until you reach Death Mountain proper. There will be four shadow beings waiting for you, one of which will hide in a small box of force shields while the other three attack you. You have to find the entrance to the small box, kill the solo shadow being there, then move out to the other three and kill them all with the B-button circle of death. The penultimate insect is located nearby, so activate your Senses and track it down before using Midna to hop up to the upper level of this area. Move around to the Goron that’s standing near a fumarole, then drop down to the watery area below to find the last insect.
Head back north towards Death Mountain and climb up the netting in front of the pass. The Goron there won’t take kindly to your intrusion, though, and will knock you off. You can’t prevent this from happening, so return to town, where the shaman will tell you that one man can teach you how to repel a Goron’s attack: Bo, the mayor of your hometown.
Getting back home will be made easier when you walk back to Kakariko, as Epona will show up. You’ll have to calm her down by moving the analog stick left or right in time with the prompts on the screen. When you see the "Seize" prompt, quickly press A to take control of Epona.
With Epona in tow, leave Kakariko via the southeastern passage and hop the fence there to reach Hyrule Field again. Now that you’re moving through the area as Link, a new Piece of Heart is available to you. Cross the bridge here and take a left, and look for it atop a stone pillar in the canyon. Use your boomerang to nab it.
Head back south to reach Faron, then stop off at the lake near your home to find the mysterious weaponsmaster, who’ll teach you the Shield Bash hidden skill. Just remember to move your nunchuck gracefully; attempting to stab violently will often cause you to fail his challenge.
Again...not something we ever needed to ever, ever see.
Head back to Ordon proper and speak to Bo, who’s standing outside his house. Soon enough, you’ll be sumo-wrestling him. How do you get yourselves into these kinds of situations? Anyway, you have three basic maneuvers here: you can dodge by tilting your analog stick left or right; you can slap by shaking your Wiimote; or you can grab and push your foe by tapping A rapidly. Typically, to win a match, you’ll need to do all three. First you’ll dodge an enemy attack, then you’ll slap, and then you’ll grab them and start pushing them towards the side of the ring; when you reach the edge, you push them out and win! It can take a while to get used to the mechanics of wrestling, but Bo will keep trying you until he’s satisfied that you’ve got everything down pat. Just don’t forget to dodge in the direction that will get you farther away from the ringside yourself; the last thing you want to do is dodge so that you’re actually closer to getting pushed outside of the ring.
What’s more, though, is that Bo will also give you the Iron Boots that you’ll need to prevent the Goron from pushing you off the cliff the next time you head up to Death Mountain. Before you leave town, though, head up to the ranch and speak to the village idiot a couple of times. After another round of goat-herding, he’ll give you a Piece of Heart.
Stabilize your rear deflectors...
Return to Kakariko to witness a disturbing scene: orcs have arrived and have dragged Colin off to the northeast. Good riddance, we say! That little big-eyed waterheaded babychild always rubbed us the wrong way.
Unfortunately, you can’t actually complete the game if you let the orcs roast Colin and eat him; you’ll have to give chase to Hyrule Field via the northeastern passage out of town and attempt to rescue him. This is going to be your first taste of horsified combat, but you shouldn’t find it too difficult. The leader of the orcs will ride ahead with Colin tied to a stick; he’ll summon in multiple helpers to help fight you off, but they won’t be very effectual. You should ignore the peons as best you can, but feel free to swipe your sword at them as they come up alongside you to knock them off your horses. The leader can summon more of these fellows when you kill them off, though, so it’s not important to kill them.
This guy’s posing more than Desmond Howard.
Instead, focus on the leader. It can be difficult to get close enough to attack him, since he’s just fast enough to stay outside of your sword range, even if you prod Epona. It’s certainly possible to catch up to him, if you time your prods so that you prod Epona just as the speed burst from the last prod is fading away, or if you try to catch him while he’s turning and strike him then. He’s got plenty of armor on; you have to continually slash him until it all falls off, then hit him one last time to start the joust!
When you reach the bridge where you and your foe joust, press forward with your analog stick and tap A to speed yourself up. Just as you near the orc, swing left or right to avoid his ramming attack, and swing with your sword. Sounds easy, but it’s actually pretty hard to do, mostly because your sword doesn’t really swing that far to the left or right. You may want to try shaking the nunchuk to whip out a whirling attack, but this often won’t activate until a second after you’ve managed to shake the nunchuk, which can make it difficult to time. Regardless, you’ll need to strike the orc twice with your sword to finish him off.
After the incredibly maudlin cutscene that follows this series of events, head into the general store in Kakariko, where one of the kids you rescued is hawking his wares. Buy the Hylian Shield from him before you head up to Death Mountain.
Head back to Death Mountain and climb the ropes near the entrance. With the Iron Boots equipped, you’ll be able to grab and throw the Gorons that attack you further down the cliff, letting you proceed along without too many problems. Don’t worry about keeping the Iron Boots on all the time; you can run along with them unequipped, then quickly equip them when you spot a Goron coming your way, grab him, then chuck him behind you to move on. The fire-arrow archers are all that stand between you and Death Mountain after that, and they’re easy enough to rush past.
When you reach the next section of the mountain, the Gorons will be waiting for you after the huge meteor drops from the sky. In order to scale the mountain, you have to curl the Gorons up into balls, then climb onto their backs, wait for them to pop back into full size and fling you up into the air, then move the analog stick so that you fly through the air up towards the next level of the mountain. You can roll the Gorons into balls by shielding yourself until they attack you, then slashing at them with your sword just after they hit your shield.
Head up to the top of the mountain, stopping by the shop in the hot spring if you need any lantern oil or something. You’ll eventually come to a fumarole that will block your path onward; equip your Iron Boots to prevent being knocked down by the hot water. Keep following the path onward and upward until you reach the convocation of Gorons, where Gor Coron, an elder of the tribe, will challenge you to a sumo match. You can only beat him if you have the Iron Boots equipped, so put them on and push him out of the ring! After doing so, you’ll be free to enter the Goron Mines, the second dungeon of the game.
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Room 1
In Room 1, go ahead and drop down and start jumping across the platforms in front of you. You’ll come to a set of wooden planks that bar your progress; smash them to move on. When you spot the button on the floor nearby, stand on top of it and put on your Iron Boots to depress the button. Doing so will cause the jets of flame that bar your progress to stop for a second.
After hitting the second button up ahead, run past the flame jet, then take a right and turn south to reach the ladder there. Hop across the southern gap at the top of the ladder to find a chest with a 20-rupee piece inside it, then hop north, then east to get onto the stone path. When you hit the stone, hop south to find another button, and depress it to stop a flame jet to the north. Quickly take the stone path to the north until you reach the door leading onward; jump onto the metal panel to its right and equip the Iron Boots to bring the lever downward, unlocking the path onward.
Room 2
Head down the ramp to your left to find a Small Key in a chest. Head back up the ramp and jump across the rotating platforms on your way to the locked door leading to Room 3.
Room 3
The salamanders here can only be hurt when you attack their tails. Wait for them to spit fire at you, then run around them and use your spin attack to deal heavy damage.
To leave this room, you have to hop around to a section of the room where a chain is attached to the section of wall that blocks the path to the door. You have to pull the chain, then release it so that you have time to actually make it to the door before the wall closes back up. Watch the flame pillars through the grates and wait until just before they subside to release the wall, then quickly hop your way to the door.
My name is Link, but you can call me Justin Bailey.
Room 4
Dive into the water and put on your boots to sink to the bottom. Move over to the button on the bottom of the water and tap it; you’ll be magnetically pulled up to the blue-tiled floor above you. Your Iron Boots stick to this kind of surface, allowing you to walk...upside down!!! Just like in Metroid!!! Cool!!!!!!!
Whatever. Walk up and over the surface here to reach the door leading onward.
Room 5
Ah, the first of three Goron Elders. When you speak to him, he’ll give you the first Key Shard; you’ll have to speak to the other two Elders in the mines to complete the entire Big Key. You can also find the Dungeon Map in a chest behind him. Time to climb the ladder to reach the second floor of the dungeon! You can find Ooccoo in one of the jars up top.
Room 4
You’ll be on the upper half of Room 4 as you extricate yourself from the Elder’s room. Use your boots to move back to the west.
Room 3
Move forward and flip the switch on the floor to jump up to the ceiling and start walking around. First off, head to the northwestern corner of the room to find a chest with a Piece of Heart in it, then walk back around to the southeast and find the path leading to the door. Drop down and move back to Room 2.
Room 2
Run forward here, kill the goblins, flip the switch, then move over to where the magnet is moving along and get sucked up by it. Drop down on the north side of the room. Repeat the process again until you reach the northern door.
Room 6
Kill all the enemies here, then equip your boots and grab the Small Key from the chest in the water. Move to the corner of the room with the chain gate in it, then drop down and push the box in the hole inwards and move in after it. When you’re inside the gate, unequip your boots and rise up to the water’s surface. Find the switch here and flip it to open a path up to the ceiling. Walk along the ceiling until you can drop down on the upper level, then flip another switch to start a magnetized stream that juts out from the wall. In order to drop into the stream, walk along the metal grate near this switch, then hop off into the blue; you’ll be sucked up by the magnetized stream and plastered against the wall.
Walk around to the platform nearby and strike the blue crystal with your sword. There are a few of these crystals spread around the dungeon; they act as switches that open doors for a short period of time before they close again. They can only be flipped by your sword...or by the weapon you’ll pick up later on in the dungeon.
Anyway, hit the crystal and move into the second part of this room. Your path will be blocked by stones with frickin’ laser beams! Don’t worry about them for the moment; instead, flip your boots on and walk up the wall. To your right lies a chest with a Piece of Heart, to your left, a rope that can be cut to reveal the path leading on to Room 7. Ignore the laser beam blockheads; just run past them to exit the room.
Room 7
Move forward along the paths here and take a right when you’re able to do so. You’ll come up into a small area with another laser blockhead in it; there’s a Small Key inside the chest here. Use it on the western door to go west.
Room 8
Hop across the rotating platform in front of you, then move out into the middle of the three Iron Boot sections on the second platform and equip the boots while it rotates. When you come back upright, flip the boots off and quickly run to the far side of the platform to move on.
Room 9
Another Goron Elder, another Key Shard for you. Climb the ladder here and move back to Room 8. Use the wall surface and your Iron Boots to move around to the door leading to Room 10.
The huge Goron here can be taken out without much trouble, so long as you know the routine. The easiest way to proceed is to head to the edge of the metallic disc that you’re fighting on and clamp down with your Iron Boots to prevent you from sliding off. The Goron will approach you and get ready to strike, so keep your shield up. When he lifts his arms in preparation for his attack, slash at his belly a few times. He’ll curl up into a ball and start rolling at you, so immediately stop attacking when this occurs and hold down the A button. You’ll grab him and throw him off the surface of the disk into the lava.
Repeat this process three times before the Goron goes down for the count. When he does, he’ll let you pass through the southern door.
Room 11
Grab the Hero’s Bow from the chest here, then use it to slice the rope on the platform in front of you. This will lead you south into a room full of blockheads, none of which will be active when you approach them. If you attempt to leave via the southern exit, though, the blockhead there will suddenly activate, Cylon-like, which in turn activates all the rest of the blockheads in the area. If you kill the blockheads (by firing an arrow into their red crystal), you can pull them away from the pathways that they block. On the eastern side of the room, doing so will net you the Compass, while killing and moving the western blockhead will net you access to...
Room 12
The Elder here will have the last piece of the Big Key for you, as well as 50 rupees in a chest.
Room 13
Roll into the metal grate in front of you to knock it down. Before jumping across to the rock where the two salamanders await you, send arrows into their tails to destroy them. You’ll also want to shoot the fireslugs that are hanging from the ceiling ahead of your path; if you don’t take them out, they’ll drop down when you jump and knock you into the lava.
Move around to the next switch and flip it, then walk along the ceiling until you find the cave with the blue crystal in it. If you can avoid rousing the salamander nearby, it should be an easy matter to hit it with an arrow and unlock the path back to Room 2.
Room 2
The chest near the door here contains 50 rupees, but odds are it won’t fit in your wallet. Sever the rope on the bridge nearby with an arrow, then ride the magnets back to the northern end of the room.
Room 6
Jump across to the northern exit, then hit the crystal with an arrow to unlock the doorway leading on.
Room 7
There are a couple of chests that we didn’t point out in this room earlier. One is in the water, and one is in the far northwestern corner, behind the archers. The water one contains 50 rupees, while the one behind the archers is apparently inaccessible until you obtain the Hookshot or something similar.
Move back up and to the right, where the blockhead was lasering you before. Shoot out its eye, then pull it away from the wall to open a secret passage leading up a ramp. Kill the archers that fire at you from a distance, then work your way around to a switch. Flip it, then hop down and ride into the beam. As you ride along around the corner, fire your arrows into the rope holding the bridge there in place. When it drops, wait until you’re above it and drop down. Check the jars to the west for a Fairy before moving off to the east into Room 14.
Room 14
Move slowly into this room. When you spot the waist-high metal railing off to your right, stand behind it and use your bow and arrow to fire on the two archers atop the balconies further into the room. If you don’t kill them now, they’ll be large annoyances when you move down to snipe out the rope attaching the bridge leading on. Take out the horde of goblins that attacks you (spin attacks will be your friend here, obviously), then open the door leading into the main man’s room.
Someone gone done tied up Fyrus. Luckily, you’re here to free him.
As is pretty par for the course, Fyrus isn’t difficult to defeat when you’ve got him figured out. He likely won’t even be able to attack you if you keep your distance from him, which is the first thing you’re going to want to learn to do. His most annoying attack is a circle of fire that expands from his body and takes up most of the room, but again, he shouldn’t ever be able to pop this off.
Fyrus’ body is dominated by two features: the large glowing spot in his forehead, and the four chains that are attached to each of his limbs. Attacking him will require you to use both of these features. First, run to one side of the room, then turn around and peg his forehead with an arrow. (He’ll usually pause at some point while walking after you, making this an easy shot.) When he’s blinded, run behind him and grab the ends of one of the chains that’s attached to his feet. With that done, quickly strap yourself into your Iron Boots and start walking away from the giant. You won’t move quick, but you don’t need to, as Fyrus will be walking away from you as well.
When the chain starts to pull taut, Fyrus will topple over and fall to the ground. Quickly tap A to drop the chain, un-equip your Iron Boots, then run around to the beast’s head and slash away at it. You’ll have to repeat this process a few times before Fyrus will finally be finished off. When he is, though, you’ll nab another Heart Container.
It’s tiny, but it is indeed a Piece of Heart.
Secondly, if you look up above the rocks you destroyed just then, you should see another set of rocks above them, on the cliff. Destroy those with your bow+bomb combo (which you can activate by hitting Z while selecting the bombs in your inventory), then use your boomerang to nab the Piece of Heart from its hiding spot.
If you climb up to the top of the northern watchtower (you can use the Gorons for boosts), you’ll be able to speak to Telo, who’ll ask you to show him how to use a bow. If you accept his offer, and manage to hit three straight bow shots of increasing difficulty, the creepy shopkeeper kid will give you another Piece of Heart. The third shot is a doozy; you may want to make it easier on yourself by disabling the pointer in the options screen and simply using the analog stick to line the shot up. Speaking of which, said shopkeeper will sell you the Hawkeye device, which effectively acts as a sniping scope for your bow when used.
Now, you’re supposed to head to the northeast from here to move on to the next section of the game, but the acquisition of bombs will have opened up some new areas to you, so you may as well take advantage of that to pick up one more Piece of Heart. Begin by grabbing Epona and jumping the southeastern gate, which leads back to Faron. In the first section of the Hyrule Field here, cross the gate, then head straight south. You’ll come to an out-of-place looking stone in the rock face there. Bomb it to reveal a cave. If you poke around inside (bring lantern oil), you’ll eventually come to a seeming dead end in the northwestern corner with a large spider inside. Kill the spider, then light both of the lamps in the dead end to reveal a chest containing a Piece of Heart.
Head back through Kakariko and proceed to the northeast, jumping the gate there to reach another section of Hyrule field. As you leave the rocky area, look to your left just as you hit the grass; you’ll see a rocky path with a large boulder at the bottom of it. Destroy the boulder with a bomb, then climb up and start jumping along the path until you spot another boulder across a gap. Destroy that with a bomb arrow, jump across, then drop down onto the rocks to your left to find a chest with another Piece of Heart.
Head to the north, across the bridge where you had your little joust with the orc leader. After destroying the rock wall that bars your progress, a portal will open up, removing the bridge behind you. Onwards and upwards, we guess.... Don’t bother fighting the shadow beings yet; they’ll be difficult to kill when you’re in human form. Move forward toward the Twilight Wall and let Midna pull you through. You’ll come to another section of Hyrule Field, one with a number of exits that are blocked off to you; you’ll also find Ilia’s scent here. The only exit you’re currently capable of taking is the one in the southeastern corner of the field. Take it, then follow Ilia’s scent to the town outside Hyrule Castle.
Feel free to start looking around town and speaking to all the spirits here while you have your Senses active. Ilia’s trail will lead you through the streets, but eventually you’ll wind up in South Road, heading down a flight of steps to Telma’s Bar. Head inside, and listen to both Ilia’s conversation and that of the soldiers in the back room. You can check the map on the table to get an idea of where you need to go.
Ilia and the injured child will be revisited in the future, no doubt.
Exit Castle Town via the same route you took in, then head east from Hyrule field to reach Lake Hylia. You’ll need to cross the Great Bridge here, but attempting to do so won’t get you far, as an archer, taking inspiration from Braveheart, will set the liquid on the bridge alight. Before you get roasted, push one of the nearby blocks to the side of the bridge, then climb up and dive off to Lake Hylia down below.
You can listen to the Zora at the water’s edge musing over why the water level has decreased so dramatically. The man near the house up the waterbed a bit will also be thinking on the same subject, or at least, he will be until he spots a monster nearby. This seemingly normal archer will summon a huge bird when you approach it. As the bird flies around, climb up towards the rock wall at the edge of the lakebed to get more height; when the bird swoops in to grab you, attack it with the Z+A lunge, then keep tapping A to rip out its heart. When you’ve killed the archer when it falls off, Midna will take control of the bird and let you fly.
The flying game here isn’t too hard; try to avoid getting shot by arrows or flying into the falling rocks. Press A for a boost of speed. So long as you have a bit of health to spare, you should make it to the end intact.
This piece of rock will melt the ice in the Zora’s domain, freeing them from their prison.
When the bird drops you, talk to the spirit near the hut, then drop down to the riverbed and head east along the ice to reach Zora’s Domain. You’ll need Midna’s help to climb the ice to the north here; when you get to the top, head into the northernmost cave. The three shadow beings are again separated by walls; track down the solo creature and kill it first before using your B-button power to eliminate the last two. When you do, you’ll make a startling discovering by activating your Senses; all the Zora have been frozen in their watery kingdom.
Now here’s a puzzle solution that you might not immediately realize. Remember that burning pillar of rock that nearly smashed you outside of the Goron Mine in Death Mountain? Sure you...don’t. Well, that’s your key to unfreezing all the Zora. Warp to Death Mountain by talking to Midna, approach the pillar, then have Midna warp it back to Zora’s Domain. (We’re pretty sure dropping a thousand tons of rock on top of the Zora isn’t going to do them any favors, even if it does melt the water, but what do we know.)
Before you can leave the Zora Domain, Rutela, a ghost queen of the Zora, will call you and thank you. She asks you to find and save Prince Ralis, her son, who’s presumably the Zora that Ilia was watching over in Castle Town. She’ll make you a deal: save his life, and she’ll let you move and breathe underwater as if you were aboveground. This game’s getting more like Metroid all the time.
Anyway, with the river moving again, jump into it and let it guide you all the way back down to Lake Hylia. With that done, walk into the cave in front of you and speak to the spirit within. Scattered Tears of Light, take my Vessel of Light, blah blah blah. Time for another treasure hunt.
First Insect: Take a right from the spirit’s spring and head up the wooden walkway. The insect will be a short distance up the walkway.
Second: This guy’s on the north end of the pier leading out to the lakeside shack.
Third: Head south from where you fought the shadow beings and look for a bunch of stones with gaps between them. Jump from stone to stone until you reach a small clearing, where the insect is burrowing.
Fourth: Swim to the west, towards the small peninsula this insect’s on, and nab it.
Fifth-Eighth: The next four insects are all to be found in Zora’s River. Move to the small clearing to the south of the lake shack, and you’ll find the small plant that the goblin archer blew to summon his demonic bird companion earlier. If you manage to imitate the call with your howling, you can summon a bird of your own and repeat your trip up river.
Four of the insects are flying along in the chasm now. You can lock onto them with the Z button and dash into them to grab them, but doing so can be difficult. If you happen to fly past one, though, hold off on the dash button for a second, and it’ll probably catch up with you and get back in front, giving you another chance to nab it. You can’t turn around in flight, so if you manage to make it to the end of the river without nabbing all the insects in here, you’ll probably have to dive back into the river and repeat the trip.
Ninth: When you reach the end of your flight, speak to the riverboat proprietor to trigger the appearance of this bug.
Tip: The second Howling Shrine is nearby. Look for it on an outcropping above the lake. Sing the tune there (Low-Mid-Low-High-Mid-Low) to summon the wolf to another part of Hyrule. Look for him when you next enter Castle Town from the east!
Speak to the spirits near the entrance to this zone to learn of a waterway that connects to Hyrule Castle. You’ll be taking it shortly.
10th and 11th: Head out to the middle of the water here and step on the lilypads. Lock onto the insects and leap attack them when they get close. It’ll take a few tries for each of them; they’re wily!
12th: On the western side of this lake, there’s a ramp leading up. Dig up the 12th insect and eat it.
13th: On the eastern side of the lake, near the frozen path to Snowpeak, Midna will help you climb up the rocky outcroppings. It’s a long and involved climb, so look for the small ramps that’ll lead up further. Eventually you’ll reach a small ramp with green rupees on it. Head down that ramp to find the insect.
14th: Head back up the cliffs with Midna, but when you reach the rupee ramp, turn around and jump even higher up the stepping stones. The path here will lead you to the throne room. (The spirit standing in front of the throne will tell you to "Sniff my queen," to which you should only throw your nose in the air in disdain. Dirty minds.) The insect is on a wall near a reclining Zora. It can be hard to see, so ram your head into the wall to dislodge it if you can’t spot it.
Icky!
Return to the Upper Zora’s River section of the map and enter the waterway on the southeastern corner, where the two Zora took off when you listened to them earlier. This’ll take you right back to Hyrule Field, on the northern side of Castle Town. Since you can’t warp anywhere near Castle Town (yet), you’ll have to run back from here. That problem will be solved when you kill the shadow beings that ambush you outside of town. Note that the Hidden Skill trainer is present to the east side of town, but you won’t be able to reach him until you shift back to human form.
15th: The penultimate insect is in the small square outside of the bar in Castle Town. Destroy the boxes nearby to roust it, then kill it. Midna will then point you out to the final insect on your map, in the middle of Lake Hylia. You can warp there, if you like.
16th: The last Tear of Light you have to find is also going to be the hardest to acquire, as the insect that’s holding it is absolutely huge. You have to float out to the wreckage in the middle of Lake Hylia to face off against the beast.
When you get there and engage your Senses, you’ll discover that the insect can fly, and attacks with a supercharged version of the usual electrical attack that the insects use. Avoid being hit by this as best you can; you can try to dive in the water to do so when the insect sweeps down on your head. If you can dodge getting hit, then quickly dash back onto the solid surface, lock onto the insect, and jump attack and tap A to rip its guts out. This is harder than it sounds; it can be difficult to get back on solid ground in time to attack. Try to stand near the edge of one of the planks, so that you have plenty of wood to back up on when the monster sweeps down; if you position yourself properly, you can avoid having to dive into the water to avoid the attack.
After a few go-rounds of this nature, the creature pops up in the water on its back. Climb onto its chest and use your B-button attack to hit all six of its stubby little legs at once. Do so, and you’ll finish it off, and earn the last of the Tears of Light, and subsequently cleanse the last remaining portion of Hyrule of its twilight curse.
So, the temple’s at the bottom of the lake. Good luck getting into it, though; you’d drown before you managed to get through the first room. No, you need to find that Zoran prince and make sure he’s all right to get the special suit of armor from the Zoran queen’s ghost which will let you breathe underwater which in turn will let you...oh, let’s just get on with it.
Begin by heading to the house that’s floating in the lake. The proprietor will offer to fly you back up to the top of the lake for a mere ten rupees. Take him up on the offer!
You’ll find yourself on the upper floor of Falbi’s place when you reach the top of the lake. If you wish, you can climb down the ladder and head out the door; no harm, no fowl. If you want to pick up a new Piece of Heart, though, you might do well to play the game he offers.
Tip: Since the other rewards are mostly Rupees here, you may want to head to Castle Town and nab a larger wallet before playing, if you’re close to the maximum Rupee limit. Read below for more details on doing so.
When you’re ready to fly with chickens, pay Falbi his money, then pick up a chicken and run off the platform that Falbi stands on. You can follow the Rupee trails down to the platforms that are floating in Lake Hylia, if you wish, or you can just try to head straight for the platform itself. The platform has a number of tiers, with the topmost tier (the one that rotates) holding a chest with 100 rupees inside. Don’t worry about hitting it; try to land on the second tier from the top, which contains the Piece of Heart. It can be frustrating to hit, but keep in mind that you can greatly slow down your speed by holding down on the analog stick. And don’t forget that if you land on a tier, you can drop down to all the other tiers and grab the Rupees in the chests there.
Before you reach the entrance to Castle Town, the mailman will come along with a piece of mail for you, indicating the availabity of two new minigames for you to play. To get to them, head to the Hyrule Field section that’s directly north of Hyrule Castle, where the river now flows into town. Head to the northernmost passage out of this section and bomb the rocks there. That’ll take you up to Zora’s Domain.
Follow the river south back to Upper Zora River, where a woman is standing by the cabin. If you walk around near the house, you’ll be attacked by three shadow beings. To defeat them as human link, take one down, then hit the remaining two with three sword strikes each. They’ll be on the verge of defeat at that point, so hit them both with a spin attack at the same time to polish them off.
Now if I only had a bag hutch...
After doing that, Iza will request your help. She’ll refill your bombs and arrows, allowing you to fire a couple of bombarrows at the rock wall that’s blocked off the flow of water nearby. When you’re done with that, she’ll put you in a boat and send you downstream. If you manage to destroy the rock wall that lies around halfway down the stream, you’re basically home free. When you reach the end of the stream, you’ll earn another Bomb Bag, which will double your bomb-holding capacity.
If you make your way back up to the Rapid Ride after this, you can try your hand at the canoeing one more time. You’ll be invited to play a mini-game involving shooting arrows at large targets that are scattered around the course; you gain points for hitting targets and lose points for collisions with the wall or obstacles. Scoring 25 points or more (this requires very few collisions and basically hitting every target) will net you the Giant Bomb Bag. Since it’s such a long trip back up to the top of the river (at least until you can change forms and warp around at will), you may want to save your game before attempting this and reload if you fail.
Located through the door to the north of Iza’s cabin, Hena’s Fishing Hole will let you try your bobbing lure fishing skills all you like. You can fish for real, if you want, but the main prize here is the Piece of Heart on the rocks in the middle of the lake. Line yourself up with it and cast your rod towards it; when you hit it, you’ll get to keep it.
You have to hoof it to Castle Town from the lake. It’s not too long a walk. Before you enter, though, it’s important to have one thing in your possession: a bug. There’s a bug collector in Castle Town that will reward you with a 600-rupee wallet if you bring her a single bug. If you haven’t found one yet, follow the path that leads southeast from Castle Town towards the ruined ampitheater there. There’s a small patch of flowers on the side of the road. The little, white, glowing thing that’s flying around in there is the bug. Pick it up.
If you hit the Howling Stone while you were in Wolf Form earlier, the skill trainer can be found just north of the entrance to Castle Town. He’ll teach you the Back Slice technique.
There are a couple of main points of interest in Castle Town, including...
Head to Agitha’s Castle in the Castle Town South Road section of town. If you give her one of the bugs you’ve picked up thus far, she’ll give you the big wallet, and tell you that if you bring her more bugs, she’ll be able to "share great happiness" with you. Wow...that sounds like something Link normally has to pay for. What she’s actually offering is a 1,000 Rupee wallet if you manage to collect all 24 bugs scattered throughout Hyrule. Whether that’s worth it or not is up to you.
The STAR game is found in the tent just to the south of the eastern entrance to Castle Town. Playing it, and winning, will net you a larger quiver for your bow, and beating it twice will earn you the largest quiver. It’s difficult to win until you have the Hookshot, though, so you may not want to spend your money on it just yet.
Tip: Be sure you have a full load of arrows before you head into Telma’s Bar. You don’t actually need 30, but you’ll probably want at least ten before you head out.
Head back to Telma’s Bar to speak to Ilia. She’s apparently forgotten who you are, and Telma apparently thinks she’s courageous because she picked some sick kid up off the road. Courage! Don’t mock her, though; Telma’s evil cat has got an eye on you. So does Telma, by the look of things. Me-ow.
Well, let’s go head-on then!
In short order, you’ll find yourself on horseback, escorting Telma, Ilia, and the Zora kid all the way to Kikariko. The first major challenge you’ll face will be another joust on a bridge. The orc here has two shields on either side of his body, though, which prevents you from using your swords to attack him. To hit him, simply start Epona into a trot, then whip out your bow and arrow and start aiming. The orc will weave back and forth across the road, forcing you to quickly aim at him when he approaches. If you hit him in the chest, you’ll avoid the shields and deal damage to him. Repeat this three times to move on.
The rest of this trip is hectic, but pretty easy. There’ll be plenty of archers and horseback riders that will attempt to set the cart on fire. If it catches alight, hit it with the gale boomerang to douse the flames, and use your bow and arrow to shoot anyone that comes near. Don’t forget to lock on! The birds, especially are annoying, so prioritize them.
When you reach Kikariko, you’ll meet up with the Queen of the Zoras again. She’ll guide you to the grave of her husband, where you’ll find the Zora Armor, which will let you move freely in the water. Head to Barnes’ Bomb Shop and buy some Water Bombs while you’re in the area. You can sell your existing bombs at the counter on the left end of his little teller stand, if you need to. Buy as many as you can afford, with 30 being a good round number. They’re basically regular bombs, but they work underwater. You can use them in the tomb of King Zora to open up a path that’ll warp you right back to Lake Hylia.
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Oh lordy, six floors of action! Not to worry, a few of these are only one or two rooms. We’ll concentrate on the main floors for our maps here.
Room 1
Nothing complicated, just swim forward. You’ll come across oyster enemies, which can only be killed with a spin attack when they open their mouths, and jellyfishes, which can only be killed when you find the weapon that you'll pick up inside the dungeon later on. Make your way past the group, then surface up into a room at the far end of the tunnel. The chests here contain bombs and arrows, both of which you’ll be needing.
When you’re ready to move north, run up the stairs and jump to the handle that’s sticking out of the ceiling to open the lock on the door leading northward.
Room 2
Whip out your bomb-arrows and start firing at the stalagmites sticking down from the ceiling. Or are those stalactites? We could never keep those straight. Anyway, knocking them down will create a jumping pathway for you toward the north door. The slugs here are hard to kill, since they can only be attacked from behind, and you won’t have enough room to adequately perform a Back Slice. Just try to avoid them.
Room 3
This room is dominated by a staircase that rotates. It seems a lot more complicated than it is; from now on, you only have to leave via the eastern or western exits, and there are only two floors that really matter.
Get used to hanging on these handles. You’ll be doing a lot of it.
Begin by heading down the stairs in front of you and taking a right turn at the bottom of them. Move all the way around to the south side of the room, then jump out and grab the yellow handle. That’ll rotate the stairs around. Drop down and head up to the upper floor, move around to the eastern side of the room, then grab the handle there. That’ll prime you up to exit through the western door on the lower level here. Before you do, though, check the chest to the northeast of that door; the Dungeon Map is inside.
Room 4
There are two stalactimites suspended from the ceiling. Hit them both with bomb-arrows, then walk through the tunnel ramp to your right. The ralling rocks will have made a path for you to reach the central pillar, then wend your way around it to the point where you can see the other stalactigamite head bobbing up and down on a geyser. Leap across to reach the chest there, which holds a Small Key, then return to Room 3.
Head up the stairs and move around to the western door on the upper level of Room 3. You can find Ooccoo in a jar near the door here. Unlock the door to move on to Room 5.
Room 5
Knock down the stalactigamictites near the entrance here, then climb up on one of them to reach the vines. When you hit the top of the barrier, jump out to grab the handle and pull it, then move to the northwest. You can see a weakened wall to your west here, but ignore it and head through the door to the south. Hop onto the cog, kill the lizardman, then proceed through the southern door and open the chest with the Small Key inside of it. With that in hand, return to the north and bomb the weakened wall to open a passage leading on to Room 6.
Room 6
The little slug in the water bubble here is annoying; his shell protects him from all damage. You can destroy the water with a bomb or a bomb-arrow, if you like, or you can just ignore him and unlock the door that leads onward.
When you reach the sluice control room here, drop down into the hole in the middle of the room and find the vines leading up to the north side. Walk all the way up the ramp here until you reach the top of the room, then climb the ladders to reach the handle. Jump out and pull it to start the flow of water. (The chest here contains 20 rupees, by the way, but you can’t reach it until you have the Clawshot.)
With the water flowing into the room, jump all the way down into it, then look around for the other handle in the center of the water. Climb up to its little pedestal and pull that handle as well; that’ll cause the water to start flowing all the way back to Room 3. If you leave through the southern door here and walk underneath the waterwheel, you can find a fairy in one of the jars there.
Room 4
When you reach the room with the cog in it, drop down off the side of it to return to Room 4 below. The three platforms here are now rotating along with the cog, so hop onto one of them and get to the northern door here, which leads to Room 7.
Room 7
You’ll find a small chest with a Small Key inside of it. Return back to Room 4, hop on the rotating platforms again, then jump off to reach the western door, which will take you back to Room 7. Head through, unlock the door, and head down, down, down into the deeps.
Room 8
There are some offshoot corridors here, which you can explore if you wish with the Iron Boots. The usual assortment of rupees and bombs dwell within. At the end of this corridor, though, you’ll find a rock blocking a passage. Plop your Iron Boots on, drop a water bomb at its feet, and head on through.
The frog will initially launch a barrage of tadpoles at you; keep yourself shielded and abuse your spin attack and normal slashes to finish them off. Afterwards, the frog will probably jump into the air and try to smash you underneath its body. Keep on the run and start rolling when you see its shadow looming large.
After it hits the ground, its tongue will roll out of its mouth. Run over and whack on it with your sword! Do so enough and you’ll cause the frog to pause for a second, then belch. Quickly target the tongue again with a bomb arrow, which the frog will swallow. After it explodes inside of its belly, you’ll be able to attack the tongue again with your sword. A few rounds of this will net you the Clawshot.
The clawshot’s a pretty simple device. When it’s equipped, pressing B will allow you to target those little red dots that you’ve been finding all over the place. If you fire it at them, you’ll let loose a chain that will pull you to the target. (You can also fire it at any vines that you see.) Try it on the multiple targets that are scattered around this room. When you’re ready to move on, fire at the switch on the southern side of the room to open the gate there. The clawshot will make it a little easier for you to return to Room 3, your next goal. Note that it can also rip the shells off of the slug creatures that have been attacking you. (It’s still better to just run past them, though.)
Room 3
Use the clawshot to make your way up to the chandelier in the center of this room to find a Piece of Heart. You can also make your way to the treasure chest that’s just at the waterline now; it contains 20 rupees.
Other than that, though, make your way to the upper west end of the room and use the clawshot to hit the target where a handle should be located, right above the staircase. Doing so will rotate the stairwell, cause it to become a de facto canal for the water that’s flowing into the room. Follow the water down the stairs and leave via the lower eastern doorway.
Room 10
Start chaining your way through the room here. The sequence goes: chain to the cog in front of you, drop down to the pillar with the chest on it, chain to the pillar above you with the vines on it, climb around to the flat surface, chain higher up to another pillar, move around to a flat surface, chain to more vines near a door, climb down to the doorway.
Room 11
Room 11 basically circles Room 10, but only on the uppermost level of it. Hang a right here and shoot down the stalactigamicactite on the ceiling into the geyser below it, then hop aboard! Jump over the wall, then clawshot your way to the door leading east.
Room 12
You know the drill. Climb the ramp to the top, climb the ladder, jump onto the switch to start the water a-flowin’. The chest behind the water, reachable with the clawshot, contains the Compass for the dungeon. It’ll show plenty of chests in the area, indeed, but feel free to skip them if you wish; most of them will just contain Rupees.
Lower yourself on the clawshot to reach the pedestals below you.
Head back to Room 11. You have to drop down to Room 10 here. If you like, you can try re-tracing the clawshot trail you took up the vines, but it’s quicker to simply drop down. If you move onto the westernmost cog, you should find the doorway leading west. Instead of going through the door, though, face north and walk off the stone platform you’re on. You should drop down to the stones below you. That’ll place you in Room 10. From here, head east by clawshotting the free targets on the cogs that spin around. You’ll have to attach yourself to the westernmost cog, whirl around 180 degrees on the cog, then fall down onto one of the platforms below you. (Don’t forget that you can lower yourself on the chain by pressing down on your analog stick; that’ll let you know when you’re precisely on top of one of the platforms.) Connect to the eastern cog, then let yourself be spun around to the eastern side of the room and head through the door there.
Room 13
You’ll need to do a bit of swimming here. There are kinda-sorta three channels of water in this room, each running north to south. If you dive into the water, you’ll find a hole that leads into the middle channel. Swim upwards, and you’ll find a platform in the mid-depths of the water with a boulder in the wall. Blow it up, then head through and equip your Iron Boots. There’s another boulder in the wall underneath where the first one was, so blow that up as well and head through that passageway, then unequip your Iron Boots and head to the surface, where you’ll find a door. (It’s quite possible to get yourself turned ass-backwards here by heading through a tunnel; don’t do it! Look for the door up in the breathable air; that’s the correct path onward.)
Room 14
If you went the right way, you should be in a little room with another bubble-worm guy. Kill it, smash the jars, then clawshot the target in the center of the ceiling. Lower yourself down via the analog stick to find the Big Key. With that in tow, return to Room 3.
Oh yes. Before you head into the boss’ room (the door to which is located at the base of the stairs in Room 3), you can track down one more Piece of Heart in this dungeon. Begin by heading to the lower western door in Room 3 and pulling down the handle. This will cause the water to flow to the western side of the area.
Head to Room 4 via the lower western door, and you’ll note that the bridge in the water has been fully raised. Cross it, then stand on the button amongst all the tiles on the ground. Clawshot your way past the gate before it closes to find your Piece of Heart.
Head back to Room 3 and unlock the large door. You’ll have to dive into the water at the bottom of the room and swim to it, underneath the pivot that the stairs turn on. You can find a fairy in one of the jars above the hole you drop into. When you do drop down, equip your Iron Boots to fall allllllll the way down to the ocean floor.
Morpheel here is a bit of a weirdo, but he shouldn’t cause you too many problems. Keep your Iron Boots on for the first section of the fight, and keep your distance from his tentacles. Creep in slowly, and keep tapping your Z button until you get a lock on the eyeball that’s being shuffled around inside his tentacles. (And how gross is that?) When you have a good lock on it, use your clawshot to pluck it out of the tentacle and pull it towards you, then start whacking at it with your sword. Nasty.
After one go-round of this, Morpheel will complicate things a bit by becoming a bit more aggressive with his tentacle attacks (which will suck you into his mouth and damage you if you get caught) and also releasing a number of smaller bomblets which, when caught up by your clawshot, will be pulled towards you and quickly detonate. These will confuse your z-targeting when you’re trying to nail the eyeball. If you grab them and let them go quickly enough, they usually won’t damage you, though.
After hitting the eyeball twice, Morpheel will reveal its true form: a huge fish that swims around, daring you to catch it. Its weak spot remains the eyeball, but it’ll be moved to the upper-back area of its body, behind its head. To catch it, you’ll have to detach your Iron Boots and swim up above the beast, wait for it to circle around beneath you, then Z-target the eye and latch onto it with your Clawshot. When you do, and pull yourself in, a few good shakes of the Wiimote will plunge your sword into the eye, Colossus-style. Repeat this process a few times to finish the beast off and earn the third Fused Shadow.
Head back to Castle Town and attempt to enter Telma’s Bar. You’ll be kicked out, of course; you’re a wolf! However, Louise, Telma’s Cat, will open a window for you to enter from outside. Push the wooden box close to the crates underneath the window and try to climb up. Make your way across the ropes in Telma’s bar to find the secret passage leading to Hyrule Castle. You’ll meet Jovani, a man who sold his soul to a dark being. Pieces of the soul are now floating around throughout Hyrule in the form of small lanterns. If you’re in wolf form, you can use your Senses to see them as ghosts and attack them. Use a Finishing Blow on them to rip Poe’s Soul pieces from them and bring them back to Jovani for rewards.
The waterway should be a familiar return for you; you were here when you first turned into a wolf. Jump to the switch to open the path leading down the waterway, then move upstairs and kill the spiders that await you there. You need to grab sticks on the ground and bring them to the flames to set them alight; bringing the lit sticks to the spiderwebs will burn them up. There’s a second spiderweb in the next room. You need to bring torches to the lanterns in that room, then use them to relight your stick after it goes out; you won’t be able to run all the way from the original flame sources to the second web. When you reach the small room with the suspicious hole in its middle, Sense the dig spot to move on.
The trip from here on should be familiar: head up the circle room via the ropes, then navigate the rooftops and enter Zelda’s room. A confusing cutscene ensues that ends with you and Midna outside Castle Town. Warp to the N. Faron Woods warp spot and head towards the Forest Temple. On the way there, you’ll encounter your lady monkey friend from way back in the day; she’ll be attacked by a quartet of puppet-like foes. Kill them all, then speak to her.
When you do, another path will become available. There’s a tree stump near the monkey, along the eastern wall of this canyon. Stand on it, and Midna will be able to guide you along. You’ll have to jump onto the bridges when they’re lined up, then wait for the wind to rotate the farthest one so you can move out to the rocky outcropping nearby. Walk along the ropes, avoiding the randomly swinging bags of rocks, then hit the Howling Stone nearby before heading into the Sacred Grove.
You enter into a secluded little area here, with nothing but a Howling Stone to keep you company. Sing along to the stone to trigger the appearance of a skeletal puppetmaster that calls in numerous friends to help deal with you.
Since there’s no map to help you here, describing where to go is kind of difficult. What you have to do is follow the skull puppetmaster around this area. Each time you reach him (you can find him by listening for his horns that he plays), attack him and hit him to cause him to retreat. He’ll warp to another part of the area and open another pathway leading on. Keep tracking him down, and after three or four attacks, he’ll open a doorway leading to a church-like area. Drop down and attack him!
Kill all the puppets and hurt the puppetmaster to move on.
Now the fight shifts to a more controlled area, where the puppetmaster continually summons in more puppets as it warps around the room. The basic plan of attack here is to wait for him to summon enemies, kill as many of them as possible with your B-button attack, then quickly track down the puppetmaster. When you get close to him, wait for him to start playing his trumpet to summon in more puppets, then quickly lock onto him and use your A button to attack; you’ll need the leaping attack to get up onto the pedestals that he likes to stand on.
Things will get a little hectic, since he’ll start to summon in more and more puppets as time goes on. Also note that if you attempt to attack him when he’s not playing the horn, he’ll simply warp away to another pedestal; be sure to only hit him when he’s playing. After a bit of trial and error, you’ll hit him three times and be able to move on.
When you arrive at the entrance to the Master Sword’s location, you’ll be required to solve a little puzzle before you’re admitted inside. The two sentries here require you to place them back on their starting points at the same time; they’ll jump around at the same time that you jump from block to block, so you have to jump yourself and attempt to get the sentries into position. They move in opposite directions, though, so getting them into place is somewhat difficult. In order to get them both up to the top of the screen, you’ll have to trap one of them so that it has no place to jump to.
If you don’t want to go through the motions of solving the puzzle on your own, try this solution: left, down, right, right, up, left, up, up, left, down, down, up, up, right, down. That should get you past the sentries, and let you obtain the Master Sword.
Before you leave the area, head back to where you fought the puppetmaster. There’s a large rock in the center of that little arena. Smash it, then talk to Midna to switch to wolf mode. You can kill the Poe if you like, but more importantly, you can dig into the hole underneath the rock (after using your Senses) to work your way into the small chamber there. If you kill every enemy in the room, a chest containing a Piece of Heart will appear.
Sweet.
You’ll get some mail from Telma if you wander around, though, so head back to Castle Town when you wish. With the Clawshot, you can probably enter and win the STAR game competition, if you wish, to earn the bigger quiver. Regardless, head to Telma’s and speak to the proprietor. Check the map on the table to learn the location of Auru, who’s been studying the eastern desert, which is your next destination.
Before warping to Lake Hylia, leave Castle Town from the southern exit to reach the skill teacher. He’ll teach you the fourth hidden skill, the Helm Splitter technique.
Warp to Lake Hylia and head southeast towards the spot marked on your map. At the top of the ladder you have to climb, you’ll spot a weakened spot on the southern wall. If you blow it up with a bomb, it’ll reveal a large cave system. You’ll need a fair number of bombs to bomb through all the walls inside, and you’ll likely run out of lantern oil once or twice. If you kill the yellow Chu jellies here, you can scoop up their remains into a jar and use that as lantern oil. At the end of the cave, you’ll find a room with two lanterns; light them both to reveal a Piece of Heart. There are also a few Poe Souls inside.
Near the entrance to this cave, you can find a Howling Stone. Activating it will send the warrior spirit far to the east; you’ll be heading there yourself shortly.
Head east and speak to Auru, who’s on top of the tower in the eastern section of Lake Hylia. He’ll give you Auru’s Memo, which you can in turn take to Fyer, the man who runs the rocket ride that used to be your path to leave Lake Hylia. Assign it to your d-pad and press the corresponding key when you’re close to Fyer. He’ll shoot you all the way to the oasis in the Gerudo Desert.
Moving this bridge back to Eldin is good for you in a lot of ways.
Travel to the east across the desert here. You’ll notice a large grey block sticking out of a pillar in the southeastern corner of the desert. If you manage to get all the way up to it (you can use your Clawshot on the tree and the flying bug to scale the rocks), you’ll reveal that the block is actually the bridge that fell from the gorge in the northern end of Eldin Province. If you defeated the shadow beings there, you can warp the bridge right back there; if not, you may have to return to the bridge by warping to Castle Town and moving to the northwest. When you have the portal available to you, you can return to the bridge in the desert and warp it back into place. Doing so will reveal the Cave of Ordeals underneath where the bridge was located. You can check it out if you wish but you likely won’t be able to proceed very far until later in the game.
Tip: As a note, there’s another Piece of Heart in the cave at the north end of Eldin Bridge. Use your clawshot to get up there, and when you’re inside, drop into the beams of magnetic energy while you’re equipped with your Iron Boots to reach the bottom. The Piece of Heart is in a chest, and you can light the nearby torches to reveal a 100 Rupee piece.
Head to the northeastern edge of the desert and alert the orcs there to your presence. When they come out on boarback, slice them to pieces, then mount one of the boars and use its dashing attack to smash through the gates on the northern end of the area. If you activated the howling stone in Lake Hylia, then the weaponsmaster will be here to teach you a new skill, the Mortal Draw.
Masses of orcs dwell within the camp north of the desert. The archers in the towers will spot you as you come (they have a much-reduced field of vision at night) and warn their friends, so be ready for company. Proceed through the camp to a spot where a large boar is being roasted for food; one of the orcs nearby will have a Small Key on his body. You can also attack the boar until it explodes to set free a Piece of Heart.
The key will open the lock on the door in the center of camp, near the fences leading north. Head inside to attack an orc with a really, really big axe. He’s not so tough. Use spin attacks, helm splitters, and other special moves to take him down, then hop onto the boar and ride back through the gate to smash your way through to the Arbiter’s Grounds.
The first floor of the Arbiter's Grounds.
Room 1
Clawshot your way up to the first platform to your right, then start hopping from platform to platform until you reach the north side of the room. Head to the platform surrounded by fences and use your clawshot to grab the chain in the sand, then pull it back a bit to open the gate nearby.
When you head up the steps, take a left to find some lantern oil, then go right for a Small Key. Scarabs will attack you after you pick it up. Well, maybe attack isn’t the best word, since they don’t damage you, but they will slow you down when they attach to you. You can shrug them off by rolling, or you can kill them all with a spin attack. Use the key to open the door nearby.
Room 2
Nothing too special here, just a bunch of mini-skeletons to keep you company in the dark. Keep your lamp lit and use it on the two torches near the northern door to proceed on.
Room 3
Another torch-locked door up in front of you here. The torches are magical, though, and they’ll all have their flames stolen by Poe ghosts as you enter the room. You’ll kill one right off the bat, though. To kill these ghosts, change to wolf form, activate your Senses, then wait for them to attack (they’ll flash white) before using a leap attack of your own to rip their guts out. When you finish them off, they’ll release the flames back to the room here. You’ll need to track down the remaining three flames to open the gate leading north.
You can find the Dungeon Map in the northeastern corner of the room here, and there’s a Piece of Heart in the chest to the northwest. You’ll need to clawshot your way back across the gap when you get it.
To start tracking down the Poes, change into wolf form and sniff the corpse in the middle of the room to grab their scent. Using Senses will lead you to a small pit on the western side of the room. Dig down it to find a chain; pull it to lower a set of steps in the floor nearby. This will lead you to the lower segment of Room 4.
Room 4
The basement of Room 4 features a pillar with a large paddle set into the base. If you walk up to the paddle and push or grab it, you’ll be able to rotate it one quarter of a full turn. That will reveal a chest to the north with a Small Key inside of it.
Before reversing the turn and leaving, look up toward the ceiling to find a hole there. If you stand on the north side of the hole and look towards the pillar, you should be able to see a clawshot target in it. Fire the clawshot up through the hole to reach the upper portion of the room, then head out through the door to the north.
The second floor of the Arbiter's Grounds.
Room 5
Kill the Poe here to find the Poe’s Soul, then return south to Room 4. Drop down the hole you clawshotted your way up through, then reverse the turn on the pillar and return to Room 3. If you head through the door leading to the upper half of Room 4, you can find a locked door leading west. Unlock it with the Small Key and move on.
Room 6
Roll across the sand near the door here to reach the platform on the far side of the room. You’ll have to avoid the spike traps that pop up, but they only do light damage. When you reach solid ground again, grab onto the black block in front of you and pull it back just until it falls to the ground level here, then move around to its side and shove it into the gap in the wall. That’ll let you walk across it when you get up higher.
Move up the steps and jump over the barrier to your right, near the spike log that lies harmless against the wall. You have to grab the chain here and pull it as far as you can, which entails pulling it across the block you pushed into the gap behind you. That’ll raise the chandelier here up to the ceiling. When you hear it lock into place, drop the chain and run underneath it; you only have a few seconds before it falls again.
Head up the stairs to reach the 2F part of Room 6. There’s a Compass in the chest here. Grab it, then push the stone bit of the pillar in the middle of the room to rotate it. After doing so, a Small Key will be found to the west. There’s a powerful skeleton guarding it, though, who’ll freeze you in place with its screams before you can attack. Best to attack from afar with arrows (or bomb arrows), or even just by throwing a bomb at it (it’s really slow). You can also attack in wolf form and use your jumping attack to latch onto it.
Head east to the winding room that is Room 7. Plenty of tiny skeletons here, so shield yourself until they get close to you, then spin attack to deal with them all at once. There are also a pair of the howling skeletons here; between the two of them, they can lock you up for a good long time with their screens, so stay away and use bombs to take out at least one of them before finishing the other one off.
When the room is relatively clear, switch to wolf form and Sense the scent of Poe. It leads to a small pit of sand near the last turn in the room. Dig up the pit and drag out the chain to reveal the third Poe. Kill it for the Poe’s Soul, then head north.
Room 8
Stay in wolf form as you enter this room. Grab the Small Key from the chest, then use Senses to detect the dozens of spectral rats that attack you here. They’re unkillable while in Link form, but if you use your Senses, you can let them attach to your body, then perform a spin attack to kill them.
Room 3
If you leave Room 8 via the eastern exit, you’ll be in the upper portion of Room 3. Hop across the chandelier until you reach Room 9 to the east.
Room 9
Head down the stairs to your left and drop down when they end. Push the black block here forward until it falls into place, then hop up onto it to reach a chain. Pull the chain to lift the chandelier. When it locks into place, you can run to the far end of the walkway to find 20 rupees in a chest, but the real goal here is to pull it, then walk underneath the chandelier so that it falls while you’re underneath the middle hole. If you stand in the shadowed in the middle of the walkway, you should be fine.
When the chandelier falls, climb up it and hop from the eastern edge to the easter door and move on.
Room 10
The enemy here is a regenerating skeleton. You can’t move on until you kill it, but it comes right back to life when you do! The secret? Slash it to death with your sword, then drop a bomb on its corpse to blow the bones apart. You can also just use a bomb arrow on it.
Room 11
A simple puzzle here. There’s a row of five torches and one torch set apart from those. Light the torch that’s standing on its own and the rightmost of the five torches, and you’ll unlock the path leading onward. Lighting any of the other four torches will cause a skeleton ambush.
Room 12
Switch over to wolf form as you enter this room and use your Senses to detect the final Poe. It won’t go down easily, though; it’ll split itself into four separate ghosts and attempt to confuse you that way. Simply target one of them and wait while they all circle around you. Eventually they’ll stop, and one of them will flash to indicate that it’s about to attack you. If you quickly retarget and nab the right ghost, a couple of leap attacks will finish it off and you’ll nab the last Poe’s Soul.
Return to Room 9 and clawshot your way over to the western door, then move through it to reach Room 3 again. Since you have all four Poe’s Souls now, all four flames here will be lit, allowing you to move on up the stairs to the north.
Room 13
Plenty of stuff to see here, but not much you can do at the moment. Head west.
The B2 floor of the Arbiter's Grounds. Room 14
There’s a large corkscrew pillar in the middle of this room, so clawshot your way down a bit until you reach the bottom the shaft. When you find the paddle, start pushing it around the corkscrew so that you bring the platform upwards. When you reach the small set of corridors on floor B1 (should be two distinct lock-into-place movements of the paddle), look around to find a Small Key in a chest.
With that done, return to the bottom of the corkscrew and start moving the paddle in the opposite direction, until you reach the bottom of the shaft on floor B2. There’s a locked door there leading south.
Room 15
You’ll need to be in wolf form to navigate here, thanks to the spectral rats that will attack you as you move. Your Senses will let you see them, and will also give you an idea as to where the spike traps will pop up. When you reach the southwestern corner of the room, pull the chain on the wall there to open the path to the exit, then quickly run around the spike traps to find it. You’ll have to backtrack a bit, but you should have enough time to get there if you don’t get bogged down by fighting.
On the southern half of this room, which runs east to west, switch back to human form and avoid the spinners on the walls while rolling your way across the sands. You can find Ooccoo in one of the jars at the far eastern end of the room.
Room 16
Big spinning spiketrap ahoy! Move along with it until you reach the northern part of the room. There are three regenerating skeletons here, with one hidden in an alcove to the west. Kill them all to unlock the gate near the spinning deathtrap. (You can roll underneath the spinning spikes fairly easily.)
When you move past the gate, it’ll be safest to just use your clawshot to move up the sandy corridor to reach the northern part of this room.
Yeah, he's big, but he doesn't really have enough power to hurt you, let alone stop you.
After you damage the ghost enough, he’ll become corporeal. Switch to your human form at this point and bust out your bow and arrow. Fire an arrow at the enemy to hurt him lightly while he flies; this will cause him to spin around the room and eventually come down to attack you. Before he can, though, hit him with your sword. That’ll cause him to keel over on his knees, allowing you to whack away at his head. All in all, a pretty simple chain of events; repeating it three or four times will eliminate the boss and let you grab the Spinner.
The spinner is basically Link’s version of a hyperboard or a skatefloater or whatever high-tech 3dgy futuristic skateboard you want to imagine. It’ll let you glide over sand and attach yourself to the grooves that run along certain walls. Equip it and attach yourself to the grooves near the treasure chest to reach the southern side of the room again.
Room 16
Now that you have the spinner, you need to head around to the eastern door here. Begin by attaching yourself to the groove near the door you enter from, ride it down until you detach, then try to quickly shuffle yourself over to the southern groove so that you ride it upwards and to the east and wind up near the door. It can be a tricky maneuver, but you’ll get it after a few tries.
Room 18
With the spinner, you’ll be able to cross the sands here, but keep in mind that the spinner will slow down and fade away after a few seconds, and you can’t reactivate it while standing on solid ground. If you get stuck here, try to jump up on top of one of the central blocks of bricks and climb up to start again. Or just drown and start back at the door to the room.
There are three treasure chests on the lowest level of the room here, containing some bombs and rupees. Things get more complicated when you start riding the rails up to the top of the room. Ride the track that leads up one level to find a chest with a Piece of Heart in it, then attach yourself to the groove running alongside the northern end of that chest, so that you’re heading east. The groove will stop suddenly; if you press B and tilt your stick to the groove on the opposite side of the track, you’ll hop over and hit the other groove. Repeating the process will get you up to an upper groove that’ll flip you down to the southeastern corner of the room.
You may have to stop your progress here and restart your spinner to get going the right way. When you eventually make an other jump and land, you’ll be near the last treasure chest in the room, which contains more rupees. Walk up the ramps nearby and head to the west to find a series of spinning blades that run along a set of two grooves leading to the door here. It’s difficult, but you have to attach yourself to one of the grooves and hop back and forth between them to reach the door. We found it best to start on the rightmost groove and try to hop from there. You can expect some frustration as you make these jumps, but with a little perserverence you’ll make it to the door.
Grab the Big Key from the chest here, then ride the grooves in the wall back to the middle of the room. Pop your spinner on and fall into the little hole here; you’ll slide right in and will be able to begin tapping the B button to rotate the gears in the floor, which will eventually open up the room leading north towards the last big section of the dungeon.
You’ll come out to a large cylindrical chamber that leads up to the big boss battle. Begin by using your spinner to climb the stairs until you reach a few jars; one of them will contain a fairy. Ride back down a ways; you have to jump from the stairs to the platform in the middle of the room. The easiest way to find your spot is to start at the bottom of the stairs and hit the groove. You’ll rotate around past two completely destroyed sections of the staircase. When you hit the end of the second section, you should be on the western side of the room and just below a section of the stairs that’s missing about half its width. If you stand just below this kind-of-ruined section of the steps and jump towards the platform, you should be able to just barely make the jump.
When you hit the platform, place your spinner in the central hole and start spinning. Soon enough, a set of grooves will open up that’ll take you up to the boss room.
Walk down the ramp in front of you to confront Zant, who will awaken Stallord to fight you. For some reason he thinks his beast will actually be able to kill you! Well, he might be right; until you get the tricks down, you can have a hard time with Stallord.
In his first form, Stallord will be stuck in the sand. Use your spinner to attach yourself to the groove that runs along the circle here, then detach your self with the B button and glide down to where his spine sticks out of the sand. If you use the B button when you’re just about to reach the spine, you’ll pop up and hit it with the spinning attack. That’ll cause the spine to crack, thus lowering Stallord into the muck a bit further.
Stallord's stuck in the sand. Give him a hand by cutting him off at the spine.
As you may expect, you have to perform this task three times before defeating Stallord, however temporarily. After the first attack, it will begin to summon large numbers of skeletons when you jump off the groove and head in for your attack. You can see where they’re coming out of the ground, though, so try to slow down and pick a gap in their numbers to bust through to the spine. If you hit any of them, you’ll likely bounce around and have to come back for another pass.
After the second hit, though, not only do you have to deal with the large number of skeletons on the slope, but you’ll also have to avoid the small honor guard of skeletons that appear just in front of the spine. You may have to approach at a pretty ridiculous angle to actually bypass the last group of skeletons here; try approaching obliquely (making your way down the slope while also attempting to rotate around the skeleton) or attempt to slash the zombies with your B-button attack when you get close to them. They may simply regenerate the next time you hit the groove, but it’s worth a shot!
To activate Stallord’s second form, use your spinner in the slot near his head to raise the platform. He’ll animate again and knock you off, so use your spinner to lock yourself onto the groove on the inside of the chasm that you’re in; you’ll start rising up.
Now, Stallord’s not going to take this standing up, or...flying up, or whatever would indicate that he’s complacent. Instead, he’ll start shooting fireballs at you. Although it looks like the gap is too big, you can indeed jump from the inside of the chasm to the outside. Do this to avoid his fireballs. You’ll have to dodge four fireballs before Stallord will come close to you, so almost immediately after you jump away from that fourth fireball, get ready to jump into his mouth when he approaches. Doing so will drop him to the ground, where you’ll be able to attack the sword that’s coming out of his head.
You’ll need to repeat this process two or three times to finish Stallord off for good. He’ll start adding spiked spinners to the grooves after the first hit, so you’ll have to jump to avoid them.
Something to look forward to…
Start making your way up the stairwell outside the door that opened when you defeated Stallord. A large group of shadow beings will attack you. Do the usual: kill all but two of them, then finish those off with your spin attack or your wolf form’s B-button attack.
With that done, use your spinner to ride the groove on the statue here. At the top will be another rotating device; use your spinner to power it up, and the Mirror of Twilight will appear from under the sands. One long cutscene will ensue, whereupon you’ll be tasked with finding the shards of the Mirror and returning them here.
If you head down to the far western edge of Lake Hylia, you can look around on the small spit of land there for a set of howling reeds and a parrot. The parrot will explain that there’s a new game in town (speak to it in wolf form), and that there’s a special prize if you manage to score 10,000 points or more. Howl into the reeds to summon a bird and start the game.
It may look daunting to try and score 10,000 points, but if you get 10 red targets in a row without falling off, you’ll be right at 10,000, so that’s your goal. Play as many times as you like until you learn the route and can nab the 10,000 points score. Doing so will earn you a Piece of Heart.
Head to the Eldin Bridge warp portal. (Assuming you repaired the bridge from the Gerudo Desert; otherwise you’ll need to head to Castle Town and head northwest from there.) If you head north across the bridge and into the mountains there, you’ll come to a group of goblins that are protecting a smaller bridge across a gorge. Nearby you can find a groove for the spinner. Spin down to the platform nearby and enter wolf mode. Dig into the middle of the grasses to find a cave with three regenerating skeletons. Let them get close, then destroy them all with one bomb to reveal a chest containing the Piece of Heart.
There’s a snaking little path that leads from the Hyrule Field north of Castle Town down to Lake Hylia. There are rockfalls blocking off both ends, but you’ve probably already blown those up with bombs. If not, head back there and do so now. You’ll notice that there are plenty of spinner grooves on the walls. Well, head to the north end of them and find the one that leads up above the path. You’ll need to jump from groove to groove (the first couple of jumps will complete automatically if you don't press any buttons at all) until you reach a platform with a Piece of Heart in it.
Warp to Kakariko Village and take the path north to Death Mountain. Use the first Goron for a boost, but when you hit the second Goron (the one near the Poe’s Soul), climb up on his back and jump east. You’ll just barely be able to grab onto the ledge there. Climb up, climb up again to the rocks above you, then start making your way to the north until you see a baby Goron on an archway. Look around at the wall on the eastern side of this area to find a cave, then drop down to find the chest with the Piece of Heart in it.
Two extra Pieces of Heart are available if you manage to contribute some cash to a couple of good causes. In the Malo Mart in Kakariko (where you bought the Hylian Shield), you can donate 1,000 Rupees to a fund that’s attempting to rebuild the bridge leading to Castle Town. If you enter Castle Town from the east, you can donate the same amount to a priest standing near the entrance. Both contributions will eventually earn you a Piece of Heart. You won’t be able to do all of these at one time, of course, but you’ll eventually manage to pay them off.
Warp to Castle Town and head back to Telma’s place. She’ll tell you about Ashei, one of the four warriors of your little band. She’s wandered off to the northern reaches of Hyrule. Check the map on the table to learn the exact location. Feel free to warp to Kakariko to buy Bomblings from Barnes; these are essentially bombs that walk themselves in a straight line when set down or thrown. It’s possible that they’ll be useful in the future, so if you have the money, you may want to buy a bunch of them. You’ll be heading to Kakariko shortly, though, so feel free to wait.
Ralis will tell you how to approach Snowpeak.
When you reach Zora’s Domain, glide along the water until you reach the large pool just before the waterfall. The passage to Snowpeak is here, and it’s finally opened up for you. Head into it to speak to Ashei. She’ll give you a sketch of the giant that apparently lives in Snowpeak. Add it to your shortcuts and show it to the Zora back in Zora’s Domain. They’ll let you know that the beast is apparently fishing, and that Prince Ralis may know something about the fish it’s looking for.
Head to Kakariko and move through the graveyard to the Zoran tomb in the western side of that area. You’ll find Ralis; show him the sketch to learn more about the beast and the fish. He’ll give you a fishhook that can be used to catch the Reekfish that the beast is looking for. Perhaps if you used the hook to lure the fish the fish can be used to lure the beast? Or something.
Head back to the pool of water near the enrance to Snowpeak. If you swim around a bit, you’ll spot red fishes on the western side of this pool, near a couple of stones that stick up out of the water. The fishhook that Ralis gave you will automatically have the special coral fishhook on it, so equip your fishing pole and go to town! As soon as you see the lure get sucked into the water, reel in a big fast Reekfish. It may take a few tries, but you’ll nab one eventually; just keep in mind that you have to start reeling it in before it gets itself off the hook, which occurs somewhat quickly.
When you have the Reekfish flopping at your feet, quickly switch to wolf form and nab its scent. With that in mind, head back to Snowpeak.
Drop down to the ice and start following the scent in front of you. When you cross the ice floes, it’ll get complicated; sometimes it will appear to scale a wall you can’t climb. The first two times this occurs, take a right (and shut off your Senses) to find the path leading up to the blocks you can climb. The third time it happens, you’ll be at a dead end. Shut off your senses and take a look at the snow that’s accumulated where the trail leads. Dash into the wall underneath the snow to send it crashing down, creating a path.
Keep following the trail until you reach the Yeti.
Keep following the trail to a Howling Stone. Lots of notes here! If you can remember the beats, then just keep in mind that the tune goes high-mid-low-mid-pause-high-mid-low. The skeletal warrior will appear in the Kakariko Graveyard, but it’d be best to get a portal somewhere around here before warping off.
Follow the scent to a digging point near the Howling Stone. This will lead to a cave section; use your clawshot to avoid some tedious climbing. Pass through the cave and head outside, then return to wolf form. You’ll be attacked by more shadow beings and a bunch of bats. Between the bats’ freezing ability and the shadow beings’ powerful attacks, you can lose a good amount of health here! Try to run away from the shadows and take out the bats before dealing with the tougher foes.
All this programming and you can't even do any tricks!
When the beasts are done, and you have your portal, feel free to warp to Kakariko, enter the graveyard, and speak to the warrior spirit there. He’ll teach you the Jump Strike.
With that done, warp back to the Snowpeak Top, switch to Link form and speak to the yeti nearby. He’ll invite you to "shred" the "slopes" with him down to his "crib" where you’ll "sip" on "Cristal". Roll attack the tree, then hop onto the shard of ice to start snowboarding down after him.
The controls here are typical: press forward on the analog stick to go faster, hold A and let go to jump. Most of the jumps are pretty easy if you just keep going forward, although there are a couple of difficult ones near the end. Ease up on the analog stick at this point and coast your way to the finish.
Snowpeak Ruins, first floor.
Room 1
Kill the Poe here, take its soul, then head out through the northern door.
Room 2
You’ll meet the Yeti’s wife here. She’ll tell you all about how she found a pretty little mirror...and then promptly got sick. She’ll give you the Mansion Map, and tell you where to find the bedroom key that you need to obtain the shard of the Twilight Mirror.
Room 3
Head through the door to the west to meet up with the Yeti again. He’s making some soup for his wife, but at the moment it’s not very good. You can bottle it, but it’ll only net you two hearts when you drink it.
You can find Ooccoo in a jar in the southern end of the screen, but you need to leave via the northern door to move on.
Room 4
There’s a switch on the ice in front of you; you need to maneuver one of the blocks on the ice on top of the switch to open the eastern door here. You’ve got a free block in the northwestern and southeastern corners of the ice block. For the purposes of this explanation, we’re going to call the northwestern block Block 1 and the southeastern block Block 2. Got it?
Start by pushing Block 2 to the west. Then, push Block 1 to the south, then east, south, west, and south. That’ll push it atop the switch and let you move out to the east.
Room 5
Change to wolf form and dig under the chip in the rock wall here to reach Room 6, the main courtyard of the castle.
Room 6
You will come to loathe the courtyard, but for now there’s not much to do here. Just open the chest near the hole you dug from, then use your senses to spot another diggable hole slightly to the north. The chest in the hole will have a Small Key. Switch back to human form to open the western door here, which leads back to Room 5.
Note the presence of the enemies here. These little frozen iceballs will freeze you when they hit you, rendering you temporarily immobile, if also immune to damage. You can kill them with a couple swipes of your sword. Get used to doing so, because you’ll be fighting them a lot in this dungeon. Move north through the locked door.
Room 7
Defeat all of the iceballs here to unlock the door to Room 8.
Room 8
Ice skeletons! How obnoxious. They’re able to throw javelins, spear you, and block your attacks until their weapons are fried. Still, they can be defeated if you press the attack. Take them both down to unlock the path onward.
Room 9
A...a Pumpkin? What gives? Guess Yeta gave you the wrong address for the key.
Head south through Room 4 and return to Room 3. Speak to the Yeti to give him the Pumpkin. He’ll double the strength of his soup with that ingredient, allowing it to restore a full four heart pieces. When that’s done, return to Room 2 and speak to Yeta again. She’ll point you to another part of the castle. Head through the door she unlocks to reach the eastern side of Room 6.
Room 6
Ignore the white wolves that attack you here and head to the northeastern corner of the courtyard, where an open window will let you climb up and over to the entrance to Room 10.
Room 10
You’ll be shown the cannon in the corner of this room as you enter. You have to grab the cannonball from the icy surface in front of you and run it through the little maze here until you reach the cannon. (You may want to clear out the iceballs before you do so.)
When you reach the cannon, walk up onto the plank behind it and drop the cannonball into it. You can fire the cannon by dropping a bomb of some sort into the cannon as well. Firing it to the west will reveal a chest with some Water Bombs in it, while firing it to the south will open a passage leading to Room 11.
Room 11
Your goal is to reach the Compass in the corner of this room without falling off enough to irreparably damage your life total. It’ll be frustrating!
Begin by creeping over to the eastern side of the room and heading south towards the iceballs. The iceballs aren’t the problem here; you can knock them off the rafters with your clawshot before you ever get near them. Unfortunately, the bats that come down on you are more difficult to deal with. Using sword swipes or spin attacks will often cause you to hang on for dear life on the rafters, so try not to fall off!
Discounting enemies, you have to move out onto the rafters here. Hop over the first small gap, then move along the rafter until you slide down on your butt a bit. You’re almost at another frozen section of the rafter that’ll send you falling into the pit, so turn right and hop to the wooden section of the rafters until you reach the Compass. The other chest here contains rupees.
When you reach the compass, walk along the platform to its north and clawshot your way back to the door.
Room 6
Return to Room 6 and transform into a wolf. Golly may, there’s a buried treasure chest under the snow! Dig it up and pop out the Small Key inside. What do you know, the door on the eastern side of the courtyard is locked! Pop the lock and head inside.
Room 12
Not much to do here at the moment, although this room will be important later. See the odd contraption by the door? That’ll let you move cannonballs between here and Room 6. First, jump up and pull the lever down, then place a cannonball on the spoonish device. Then head back to Room 6 and pull the lever there down to retrieve the cannonball.
Move the cannonball to the middle of the courtyard and place it into the cannon there. Firing south will reveal more water bombs in a chest; firing it north will reveal the door to the next room.
As you attempt to exit via the northern door in Room 13, a huge knight in armor will attack you with a ball and chain. The knight’s only weak spot is his tail on his rear side. Unfortunately, getting to the tail will be a job and a half.
Left to his own devices, the knight will simply swing his weapon around and attempt to corner you and box you in, letting the swinging action finish you off. If you want him to expose his weakness, you’ll have to use your clawshot on the ceiling so that you can quickly pull yourself up then jump off so that you land behind the knight. You can’t attack it just yet, though; instead, wait for him to throw the ball and chain at you, dodge it, then run back behind him and hit the tail with a spin attack.
It’s a difficult maneuver, not least because your camera will likely be screwed up when you clawshot over the knight’s head, making it tricky to know when he’s about to attack you. When you do drop down from the clawshot, try to stick to one side of the corridor and dodge to the other side when you see him swinging; that’ll give you a better chance of avoiding the attack. You may want to check the video in the HTML version of this guide (if you’re reading the PDF) to get a pretty good video example of what to do.
When the beast is dead, pick up the Ball And Chain from the ground and head north to the second section of the room. Use the ball and chain to smash the ice here and open the chest to find the Ordon Goat Cheese. Mmmm-mmm! Also note that one of these suits of armor can be smashed to reveal a 100-rupee piece.
Note that the acquisition of the ball and chain will have unlocked a couple of chests for you. You can smash an ice wall in Room 10 to find some rupees. More rupees await if you smash the suits of armor just inside the entrance in Room 1.
The second floor of the Snowpeak Ruins.
After returning the cheese to the Yeti and speaking to Yeta yeta-gain (get it?), she’ll unlock another door for you. (The soup gets all the way up to eight hearts at this point.)
Room 14
Smash through the ice with the ball and chain, then kill the two ice-breath monsters in the cages overlooking the steps leading up with the same weapon. When you reach the top of the steps, head right into a room with a conspicuous clawshot marker on it. Note the weakened floor on the eastern side of the room? Either drop a bomb onto it or fire your ball and chain over it to smash it, then drop down to find a Piece of Heart in the chest there. Clawshot your way back up and head north.
Room 15
(This is really the upper portion of Room 11, but we’ll go ahead and keep our numbering scheme going for simplicity’s sake.)
Kill the ickeleton here, then smash the ice on the wall to reveal a clawshot target. You can Z-target the chandelier here in the middle of the room; do so, then whack it with the ball and chain to get it moving. Jump onto it, then jump to the chest in the northern end of the room to obtain a Small Key.
Clawshot your way back south and unlock the locked door in Room 14, which leads you back to Room 1.
Room 1
Smash the ice near the door here. The clawshot target that’s revealed will help you out if you fall off the chandeliers.
Speaking of chandeliers, whack the first one with your ball and chain to get it within reach of your jumping, then hop onto it! There are two more chandeliers here, both to the south. If you manage to hit them with your ball at the right times, you can hop from platform to platform until you reach a chest with another Piece of Heart in it.
Return to the northernmost chandelier and hop to the west to reach Room 16.
Room 16
Destroy the iceballs, then smash the ice wall here to reveal a Poe. Kill it, nab its soul, then move to the north.
Ah, the return to Room 4. Move around to the western side and push the block there forward. It’ll fall into a socket on the ground and allow you to climb back up to the upper floor when you need to.
This is the room with the switches in the ice and the blocks you can push around. Now that you have the ball and chain, you can smash the ice shroud on the northeastern block as well as the ice that covers the middle switch here. The middle switch is what you need to depress in order to unlock the door on the second floor here.
Pushing blocks around? Not so much fun.
Now, assuming you didn’t move anything since you were here last time, here’s what the situation should look like. You have one block on the southernmost switch, Block 1, and another block one square north and one square west of that block, which is Block 2. Entering the equation is Block 3, which you just freed from its sheathe of ice.
The first thing to keep in mind here is that Block 2 will never move. Instead, push Block 1 straight to the north so that it’s in the middle-north square. Push Block 3 south, then west (into Block 2), then north, so that it hits Block 1 and is one square away from the center switch. Push Block 1 east, south, west, then north, and it’ll be on top of the switch, opening the door on the upper floor here. Climb the block you pushed down earlier to reach it and head into Room 6 again.
Room 6
The courtyard is as chilly as ever to you. There are no fewer than three ickeletons on the narrow path that you have to follow here. Keep your shield up and use normal swings until you manage to knock away their weapon, then finish them off with a spin attack and more normal swings. Use your clawshot to pull yourself through the gap in the northern wall.
Room 17
Nothing to see here. Just head west into the upper portions of Room 8.
Room 8
Knock the chandeliers around until you reach the southern portion of this room, where a Small Key awaits you. Grab it and head back south to Room 16, where you can use it to unlock the door leading to Room 17.
Room 17
Destroy the two icebreaths here with your ball and chain, then push the blocks on the eastern side of the room into Room 14. Head into Room 14 yourself, head down the ramp, then move into Room 12, where you can push another block to make a passageway to the cannonballs. Drag one of the cannonballs all the way up to the cannon on the eastern upper side of Room 14, then point the cannon to the west and fire it back into Room 17.
Grab the cannonball in Room 17 and bring it through the northern door back into Room 6. In the courtyard, load up the cannon with the cannonball, then point it towards the icebreath to the northeast and fire!
Head down to the courtyard floor, enter Room 12, then climb the ladder there to reach the door to Room 18.
Room 18
Proceed slowly through the room, as a number of ickeletons will drop from the ceiling and attack you. Getting hit is all but assured here, but when you do, immediately get up and perform a jump attack, and it’ll usually go through. It’ll smash your target’s weapon and usually allow you to finish them off with a quick spin attack.
When you’ve defeated all of the ickeletons, grab the Bedroom Key from the chest in the northern edge of the room. When you leave the room, Yeta will offer to walk you up to the bedroom. Oo-la-la! While the Yeti’s a cookin’, Link will be...also...cooking...or something.
Before following Yeta into the bedroom, return to where the Yeti was making the soup for a health refill. Empty one of your bottles and fill it up with the soup, then drink that until your health is full.
You may need some padding on the health to take down Blizzeta, but she’ll go down eventually. The first form here is easy enough to take on; simply equip your ball and chain and whack her whenever she gets close to you. She’ll eventually start attempting to throw out little iceballs in a radial pattern around her, but those are inconsequential. You can try to destroy them with your ball and chain, but even if they hit you they won’t deal much damage. Just focus on attacking her, and she’ll eventually get the ice knocked off her completely and morph into phase two.
Things get a bit more difficult now, but not incredibly so. In her second form, Yeta will encase herself with ice again and surround herself with large icy spikes that she’ll attempt to ram into the ground underneath you. Since you’re going to be in the way of this ramming action, you’ll understandably want to try and run to one side or the other while they fall.
After all of the spikes have fallen, they’ll rise up again, form a circle, and try to trap you by falling all around you at one time. It’s difficult to avoid getting hit by the spikes here, and ifyou don’t try to run, you’ll be trapped inside the circle, and Blizzeta will quickly follow the spikes down, crushing you underneath. She doesn’t do much damage here though, so you should quickly get up and try to use your ball and chain, either on her (three hits will finish her off), or on the ice spikes around her. Attacking the spikes will cause holes to form in the circle when she attempts to recreate it, making it more likely that you’ll escape it and be able to attack her directly the next time around.
After hitting Yeta the third time, you’ll be able to retrieve the second shard of the Twilight Mirror, as well as another Heart Container.
The secret route is really the only way to beat Yeta.
In point of fact, if you visit the Snowpeak Top warp point, you can speak to Yeti and Yeta again. They’ll challenge you to a pair of races down the mountaintop. Yeti’s not difficult to beat, but Yeta’s pretty speedy, and she’ll also take a semi-hidden route down the mountain top. You’ll have to follow her once to see where she jumps up and where she glides, then fall off a cliff to start the race over and try the secret path for yourself. If you need an extra speed boost...then whip your sword out and attack her when you’re alongside her! You’ll cause her to spin out and get a significant edge on her.
After beating Yeta, you’ll receive your Piece of Heart.
Head into Hyrule Field north of Castle Town. There’s a rocky path leading to the north, to the Zora’s Domain. Head up towards the exit, but instead of heading through the tunnel to the land of Zora, poke around a bit to find a little clearing just south of that area. There’s a rock that you can bomb to open a cave here. Use the ball and chain to smash the ice beyond it, then solve three block-pushing puzzles to obtain your Piece of Heart.
Head to Telma’s Bar to learn that Rusl is who you should be headed for now. He’s near the Forest Temple in the Faron Woods. Warp to the N. Faron Woods warp point and speak to Rusl, who’ll give you a chicken to use to cross the gorge. That dork.
This is basically the same path you took when you were a wolf, but now you’ll have to jump around with the chicken to head to the same place. Go straight ahead from Rusl until you reach the point where you can turn to the southeast. When you spot the wooden bridge, set down the chicken, get a Z-lock on the windmill atop it and use your boomerang to rotate the bridge. Pick up the chicken and use it to float across to the bridge, then rotate it again to move off to the side. Ride the chicken past the swinging branches to reach the Sacred Grove again.
The puppetmaster can get up awful high here. Look in the trees for him.
You’ll have another run-in with the skeleton puppetmaster here. He’ll lead you around the grove and taunt you by playing his lantern over the shadows as you give chase to him. The thing to remember here is that, although you’re chasing his lantern light, he can actually appear almost anywhere, including, this time, well out of reach of your sword. In fact, the second time you hit him, he’ll be up on a pedestal, forcing you to shoot him with a bow and arrow, and the last time you hit him, he’ll be up in tree branches, well above your normal line of sight. Climb up the tree nearby and look around to spot him and shoot him with another arrow.
He’ll lead you through another few rounds of arena action before giving up the ghost. Kill his puppets, shoot him with an arrow, lather, rinse, repeat. When he reveals the path leading on, push the block out of your way and return to where you first obtained the Master Sword. If you strike the sword back into the receptacle, you’ll reveal a doorway back where you first entered the room. Finish off the shadow beings to open a portal here, then head through the doorway to reach the Temple of Time.
1F: Bell Room
Take a look around the room here. It’s dominated by what appears to be a large bell. You’ll see more of these as you proceed up the tower, but you won’t need to worry about them until you defeat the miniboss.
When Midna tells you to investigate the statues, flip into wolf form and use Senses to detect the presence of another statue that used to be in the area. Your goal? Find the statue and return it to its pedestal. Begin by picking up a jar or stone and placing it on the pressure plate on the square across from the missing statue’s pedestal. That will raise a stone nearby, letting you climb the steps.
You now have access to the door at the top of the steps, where you’ll find Ooccoo. The door’s locked, though, so head down the steps to the western side of the room and light the lamps there. That’ll reveal a chest with a Small Key. Open the door on the southern side of the room and head on up!
2F/3F: Corridor
Kill the spider here, then place a jar on the pressure plate in the middle of the room. Grab the arrows from the chest, if you need them, then move to the west. When you’re past the first gate, close it by smashing the jar with an arrow or your clawshot.
Kill these statues by swinging your sword at their backs.
Move up to the 3F portion of the hallway and kill the lizardmen in the next room. There’s also a statue here that will animate when you move close to it. It can only be hurt by rotating around it and hitting the crystal in its back; the Back Slice maneuver is particularly well-suited for this purpose. Just lock-on, tilt your analog stick to the side, and tap A a couple of times, then slash your sword at its back. Kill it, and you’ll nab the Dungeon Map. Place two jars or small statues on the pressure plates to unlock the gate leading onward.
3F/4F: Corkscrew Room
Large room here, with a set of steps and a pen of spiders in the middle. You can’t get into the pen yet, so head up the stairs, using your spinner on the wall to cross the gap, and reach the corkscrew in the middle of the room. Rotate the panel so that the platform heads down to the spider pit. Don’t worry about the spiders just yet; just grab the small stone statue nearby, place it on the movable platform, then rotate the panel so that you head back up to where it was originally at (which would be 4F if you’re checking your map).
While you’re on 4F, check your minimap. You should see a door leading out of this room to the south. It’s currently unreachable, so grab the stone statue you brought up from 3F, run past the spinning spike things, and place the statue on one of the pressure panels on the southern side of the room. There’s another statue to the west. Grab it and bring it back here as well. When you place both of the statues on the plates, you only have a second or so to get onto the white platform before it raises, so try standing on it before you drop the second statue. When you do rise up, head through the southern door to move on.
4F South: Statue Room
Two animated statues here. Stand behind one as it wakes up, then slash its crystal as soon as it lights up. You should be able to finish it off before it even moves. When both statues are dead, a chest with a Small Key appears. Return to the Corkscrew Room and head to the northern side of 4F, where a locked door is.
4F North: Corridors
Move north and destroy the laser statue with an arrow. Hit the green crystal with your sword to shift around the movable walls, then move to the middle of the room and shoot the same crystal with an arrow. Move around to the chest to the east and find the Compass, then shoot the crystal one last time to move on.
These armored lizardmen will pop up throughout the rest of the game.
The western section of corridors works in essentially the same way, save that the crystal is higher and there are armored lizardmen hanging around. Try to attack them when they raise their weapons, and you’ll kill them soon enough. There’s a chest in this area, but you won’t be able to reach it yet.
6F/7F: Scale Room
There are a whole bunch of spider grubs running around on the floor here. They’ll aggravatingly avoid you when you chase after them, so hop on your Spinner and run them down to thin out their numbers. You can finish them off with your sword, or with excess slingshot ammo or something similar. When they all die, you can nab 50 Rupees from a chest.
Head up the stairs to the scales above you. There are currently only two statues to work with here, with one residing on each side of the scales. Stepping onto the scales yourself will cause it to tilt out of balance, so grab the small statue at your feet and throw it up onto the far side of the scales. That’ll cause it to balance out. Walk to the west, then hop up to the floor beyond the scales and move out. (You can see that there’s a chest above you, and can probably hear a Poe, but you don’t need to get up there just yet.)
7F South/8F West: Corridors
Head west and dodge the rollers and axe to find a Small Key in the chest here. Then head north past the rollers, grab a jar or small statue, dodge the roller, and place your wares on the pressure plate to disable the electricity. Head north to a room full of spider grubs and animated statues. Kill everything to reveal a chest with 50 Rupees inside and to open the gate leading to the east, where you’ll face the miniboss. Smash all the jars in the area to heal up if you’re low on health.
When you’ve poked away all of the swordsman’s armor, he’ll throw his big sword at you and draw a smaller one for a more intimate duel. He’ll still block most of your attacks, but you can easily kill him by using Back Slice. Just roll around him and attack him! He’ll actually block the Back Slice itself, but if you follow it up with normal attacks, he won’t be able to block those. Lay on him until he goes down.
Grab the Domination Rod from the treasure chest here. See the big statue in the alcove above the chest? That’s the statue that you have to bring all the way back down to the first floor. Aim the domination rod at it until you see the yellow targeting symbol, then B-button it to take control of it. This is what the domination rod does; it lets you take control of any stone statue with the little holes inside of them. This big statue will move wherever you do, and can also be used to attack your enemies with the B-button. Use the A button to quit controlling it at any time; you’ll need to do so to reposition yourself fairly often.
Anyway, move Link so that the statue drops down to the floor, then move as close to the door as you can. When you can’t move anymore, quit controlling the statue, run around it so that it’s between you and the door, then control it and move it underneath the bell here. These bells will let you shuttle the big statue from room to room. And now we start our descent back down the tower...
8F West/7F South: Corridors
Control the statue and use its attack to destroy the barrier in front of you. Drop down and place a jar on the pressure plate in the middle of the room. Run both yourself and the statue onto the platform that dropped down, then turn around the shoot the jar with an arrow or your clawshot to rise up.
Head down the steps and use the statue to stand on the plate on the other side of the electricity. Drop control, then move across the electrical gap and retake control. The statue’s immune to damage from the rollers here, so position it and let it block them from hitting you as you move through the gaps that they run on.
Your controlled statues can smash through most barriers in your path.
Head down the steps and have the big statue destroy the little spinners, as well as the laser pillar in the center of the room, which dwells atop a pressure plate. Move the big statue over to the side of the room underneath the bell and put it atop the white floor there. With that done, take control of one of the little statues on the pillars nearby, walk it down to the floor, and place it atop the pressure plate to raise the statue back up to the bell level. Move it under the bell to shunt it back to the Scale room.
7F/6F: Scale Room
Leave the big statue in place for the moment. Head down to the scales and throw one of the small statues onto the other scale, so that you’re standing on one side of the scale and two small statues are on the other; the scale should be evenly weighted, meaning that both scales are at the same height. Move to the southern lip of your scale and aim at the clawshot in the ceiling; you should be able to reach it if you move far enough to the south. (If you can’t, you can continue to weigh down one of the scales with the big statue and the other small statues until you’re closer to the ceiling.)
When you’re up above the bell structure, you should see a spinner groove on the wall in front of you. Ride it around to the north and grab the rupees from the chest as well as the Poe’s Soul here, then move through the door to the west.
7F: Big Key Room
That’s right, son, it’s Big Key time! Use your clawshot to grapple the shells off of the slugs here, then kill them and the animated statue. Use the clawshot to pull yourself up to the platform on the western side of the room. Grab the rupees from the chest, then start filling up the pressure plates. There are two small statues on the ground nearby to use, as well as one on a shelf nearby that you’ll have to possess with the dominion rod to bring down to ground level. Lastly, grab one of the slug shells and place it on the final plate to open the path leading to the Big Key.
Now, return to the scale room and control the big statue. Place it on the southernmost scale, then drop down and throw the smaller statue here up to the northern plate. The big statue obviously weighs a lot more than the smaller ones do, so what you need to do now is drop down to the ground, move around to the northern plate, and possess some of the small statues on the shelf above it to bring them down to ground level. You need to have the big statue on one panel of the scales and four smaller statues on the other panel to even out the weights. (If you place the statues correctly and it’s still not balanced, it’s probably because you’re standing on the scales yourself!)
When you have the two panels at the same height, possess the big statue and move it to the northern plate of the scales. This will obviously overweight it, so drop down to the panel yourself and throw the four smaller statues onto the southern plate. When that’s done, hop back up to solid ground to restore the balance in the scales, then repossess the statue and bring it down to the bell on the lower area of the room to move on.
5F East/North: Corridors
Shoot the crystal here once to flip the stone walls around, then move to the center of the room and possess one of the small statues. Move it to the pressure plate to shut off the electricity, then find the chest nearby to grab a Piece of Heart. Shoot the crystal again from just underneath it to gain access to the big statue. Walk it down the steps to the northern part of the corridors, have it break the brick wall in front of you, then walk it to the bell in the middle of the room to shuffle it off to the rooms ahead.
5F South: Piece of Heart
Now, you should be back in the corkscrew room. Before you start moving the statue around, though, you can find a piece of heart in the southern room here where you got a small key before. To return there, push the corkscrew to the bottom of the room, grab the small statue, then place it and the small statue on 5F on the pressure plates again.
Using your dominion rod, you can unlock a new Piece of Heart in this room.
When you reach 5F South, kill off all the spiders, then walk to the southern end of the room, near the chest you opened earlier. See the small statue off to the east, behind the fenced-off area? Possess it, then walk it down its little path until it falls into the slot at the end, near where all the spiders were. You might need to move it around a bit, but it’ll eventually fall on top of a pressure plate. Grab one of the other statues from the ground nearby, bring it up near the chest, and throw it into the western fenced-off slot and repeat the procedure. Doing so will reveal a chest with a Piece of Heart in it.
5F/4F/3F: Corkscrew Room
Move the corkscrew all the way to the top of the room, then bring the big statue there onto the walkway. Take the statue all the way back down to the bottom of the room. If you kill all of the spiders here, the electricity will fade away, letting you move the statue around the room. There’s a Poe on the eastern side of the room, behind a gate; smash it with the statue to get the Poe’s Soul. Then, smash the other gate in front of the bell and move the statue into it to move on.
3F/2F: Corridors
Use the clawshot to move over the gate that blocks your path, then bring the statue down to the bell on the 2F section of these corridors.
1F: Bell Room
Move the statue back to its resting place to open the path leading onward to the big boss fight! The little corridor there isn’t too difficult to maneuver through. Shoot arrows into the laser pillar’s eyes, then place a small statue on the pressure plate near the northern end of the room. When you’re past the gate that leads on, possess the same small statue with your dominion rod and walk with it for a second to switch the gates and move on to the Big Key door. There’s a fairy in one of the jars outside the door.
Armo here is another two-phaser, but at least they’re simple to explain. To begin with, stand in the middle of the room with a bow and arrow equipped. Track the beast around; when it covers up a beam of light and opens its eye, it’ll be preparing to shoot out a laser beam. Quickly shoot its eye to drop it to the ground, then run up to the statue nearest its body, use your dominion rod on it, and quickly tap B to have the statue smash the spider with its hand. You’ll need to be pretty close to the statue to control it.
You’ll have to do this three times to bring the spider to its second phase. After the first attack, the spider will drop down hordes of spider grubs to attack you on the ground, so be ready with your spinner; just glide through the crowd a few times to thin the numbers, then polish off any stragglers before turning your bow back on Armo herself.
After you hit her with statue fists three times, Armo will shed her large spider body and reveal herself to be a very small spider. She’ll surround herself with grubs and attempt to run away; pound her with an arrow-bomb to finish her off for good and earn the mirror shard and Heart Container. When she’s dead, Midna will warp you back to the Temple’s foyer area. Use the dominion rod on the two statues near the jars here to find a Poe’s Soul and another Piece of Heart.
Hey, guess what! Now that you’ve finished your business in the dungeon, it’s time to return to Telma’s Bar and catch up on current events. As you head into town, you’ll get mail from Renado indicating that you should see him in Kakariko. Coincidentally, one of the adventurers of Telma’s little band is also in Kakariko. Head that way yourself.
These skeletal dogs have the Wooden Rod that Ilia needs to be re-memoried.
Speak to Renado to receive Renado’s Letter. Feel free to speak to Shad in the basement before returning to Telma and talking to her again. Show her the letter to receive the Invoice for Castle Town’s doctor, who’s been running a high tab in Telma’s bar. Head to the town medical office, which is just inside the western gates. Show the doctor the invoice, and he’ll let spill that he stole a wooden rod from Ilia, but then covered it with medicine and then managed to have it stolen! What a dork!
Head into the rear of the doctor’s office and push the crate there to one side. Convert to wolf form and sniff the medicine to get its scent in memory. Head outside the western gate until you’re out of eyesight, then change to wolf form, return to town, and start following the scent from the doctor’s office. It’ll lead you right to...Telma’s Bar? That’s right. Louise, the cat, will be outside the bar, just dying to tell you about how she stole the statue from the doctor, then had it stolen from her by a pack of feral skeleton dogs that live in the field to the south of town but which only come out at night because someone apparently mixed up the weaknesses of skeletal undead and the weaknesses of vampiric undead when they were writing the game.
Anyway, long story short, go to the field outside the southern gate and poke your head around. There’s a Poe’s Soul here if it’s nighttime. If it’s not nighttime, then you’ll have to...wait. Don’t worry too much about it; the day/light cycle only takes a few minutes to switch. When it is nighttime, head down to the grassy area to encounter the devil dogs. Kill all of them to obtain the Wooden Rod.
Head back to Kakariko and show Ilia the Wooden Rod. Soon enough, Darbus will head north and offer to show you the hidden village where the secret defenders of Hyrule’s royal family once dwelled. Check your map for his location, north of the Eldin Bridge, then head there yourself. You’ll probably recognize the location, and might have even tried bombing it open a time or two, but Darbus will be able to do the work for you. (If you never bought the Hawkeye at Malo’s shop, now would be a good time to grab it.)
Head out of the tunnel and into the village proper. There are plenty of enemies here, but luckily for you, the Hawkeye and your bow and arrow will make a good team in taking them down. There are 20 of them in all, including a number of archers, so stay back near the entrance to the village and use your bow to kill as many of them as possible before moving forward and entering the buildings. A few of the archers can be shot through the windows of the buildings here. The hardest guy to hit is atop the building near the last Howling Stone; you can climb onto the balcony outside and find a path to the platform beneath him and hit him from there. (Don’t activate the Howling Stone until you’ve killed all 20 targets, or they’ll all respawn!)
Tip: The Howling Stone, by the way, uses this pattern: mid, low, pause, mid, high, low, pause, high, mid, high, mid. Nab it after speaking to Impaz, and the warrior skeleton will appear outside Hyrule Castle to teach you a new skill later in the game. You have to smash through some windows in one of the buildings to find the Howling Stone.
Speak to Impaz after destroying all of the monsters. She’ll give you Ilia’s Charm.
Ilia's Charm will restore her memory.
Time for a good amount of running around. First, return to Ilia and show her the Charm. Her memory will be restored, but only after an unskippable cutscene - argh. She’ll give you the Horse Call. It’ll let you call Epona from anywhere in the world, even when you don’t have horse grass. She’ll also tell you that Impaz guards an item that waits for the Heavenly Messenger, who is presumably you.
Warp to Eldin Bridge and use the Horse Call to summon Epona. Head back to the Hidden Village and speak to Impaz.
As a note, you can obtain a Piece of Heart here in the village. If you change into wolf form and speak to the cats, they’ll refer you to the leader of the chickens. You can find this chicken near the Howling Stone; again, just bust through windows in the buildings on the right side of the street until you find it. Your goal? Speak to all 20 cats in the village. When you hit them all, you’ll nab the Piece of Heart.
Of course, it’s easier said than done. Most of the cats are on the lowest level of the village, but some of them kind of blend in with their surroundings, so it can be tough to track them all down. Keep in mind that some of them will require you to change into human form and move around like that before you can track them down. Also keep in mind that the clawshot can be used to climb up to the upper balconies on the left side of the street. If you use it on the vines/rope ladder above the watering hole, you can take the walkways that lead above the alleyways behind the building there. You can spot a window near where the walkway ends; if you smash it and jump over to the window, then you’ll be able to talk to the hardest-to-find cat. The rest of them are easier to track down; it’s just a matter of keeping them all straight and talking to all of them.
Put the dominion rod on your d-pad shortcuts and use it on Impaz. She’ll give you the Ancient Sky Book. Yay, we guess. Bring it back to Kakariko, then drop into the cellar of Renado’s house and show it to Shad. Apparently sky writing sounds just like Japanese!
The word that Shad uses on the statue does nothing, but it will recharge your dominion rod. Shad will also give you the location of a number of statues on your map. Sounds like it’s time to track them down!
Jump up here to find a Piece of Heart.
Head to where you first bought your lantern from the hippy way back when. Move off to the northeast of his position to find the statue. Possess it with your rod, then move it south of its position into the hole in the ground. It’ll lock into place. Move Link over to the glowing platform it was standing on, and you’ll learn a Sky character. You’ll apparently need all six of them to...do something. Again.
Since you moved the statue into the hole, you can jump onto its top while in wolf form, thanks to Midna, and you’ll come to a chest containing a Piece of Heart.
If you head to the north end of Kakariko Gorge, you’ll find the statue in a secluded little spot. To hit the chest located above, first possess the statue, then move it into the middle of the gap on the western side of the small area, so that you can jump across it. Find the ramp leading up to that gap, and jump across it! As soon as you’re across, turn around, possess the statue, then run around to the gap on the eastern side of the area; the statue should be placeable just where you need it to jump south, where there’s a chest with 100 Rupees. Again, don’t forget to stand on the platform where the statue was located to get the Sky character.
Use the rod on the statue and drop it down to the bridge’s level. Hop on up for the symbol! There’s also a hidden treasure here. If you take control of the statue and take it alllll the way to the southern end of the bridge, you’ll notice a gap in the stone off the left side of the bridge near the next gate. If you drop the statue into the gap and jump across to the room with the ladder in it, you’ll be able to climb up to the top of the guardhouse, where a Piece of Heart awaits.
The first statue near Castle Town is to the southeast of the warp point, in the ruined ampitheater. Guide the statue off of its pedestal, then steer it to make it so that you can jump to it from the seats of the theater and from the top of it to the Sky character. There’s 100 Rupees in a chest on top of the other pedestal nearby.
Drop down from the ivy here to reach the sky writing.
The second statue accessible from the Castle Town warp point is located to the east, in the small field north of Lake Hylia. Find it, possess it, then drop it down to ground level and park it just beneath the ivy that hangs from the cliff above it. It can be difficult to place it properly, but if you use the clawshot to connect to the ivy, then drop down, you should be able to tell where you need to place it so that it’s directly underneath the ivy.
So, connect to the ivy with the clawshot, drop down, jump to the glowing portion of the ground. To reach the chest nearby, possess the statue from where you obtain the Sky character and move it to a position where you’ll be able to jump to it and from there to the chest, which contains 100 Rupees.
Warp to Gerudo Desert and find the statue. Drop it into the depressed area of the ground and move it into the northwestern corner of its alloted area, then find the bricks you can climb on, jump to the statue, then jump to the Sky character. From here, you can possess the statue again, gingerly move it around so that it’s in a position to let you jump to the adjacent platform, then adjust it again to jump west towards the chest, which contains 100 rupees. Each jump will require a few microadjustments before you’ll be able to make it.
With all of the Sky characters in your book, you’ll have the word that Shad needs to do whatever it is he’s planning on doing. It’s all very mysterious, and kind of hush-hush.
Anyway, Shad will be able to use the word you completed to activate the statue in the basement of Renado’s place. If you show him your book, he’ll eliminate the shielding on the statue there, then take a breather. Use the Dominion Rod on the statue to move it out of the way, and you’ll find the Sky Cannon hidden away in a secret room. Move up close to it and let Midna investigate it. You won’t be able to warp it anywhere until you speak to Shad again and hint that he should take another long break, so speak to him again to get him to leave. Then, use Midna to warp the cannon to Lake Hylia.
Speak to the man who owns the cannon shop that used to shoot you up to the top of Lake Hylia. He’ll offer to repair the cannon for you...for 300 Rupees. You should’ve cleared an easy 400 Rupees from all the running around for the statues. If you still need more cash, you can hand in any bugs you have to the woman in Castle Town who collects them. Regardless, raise the money and pay the man, then clawshot yourself into the rear of the cannon to reach the City In The Sky.
1F: Pool Area
Before you even get out of the pool here, look around for a pair of chests underwater. Use your Iron Boots to get to them for some Rupees and some bombs. Then, get up and out of the water and head west towards the shop. Use your Iron Boots to avoid being blown away by the gusts of wind. Buy anything you want, but talk to Ooccoo to get her back in your bag. With that done, head back out to the pool and proceed to the north to enter the dungeon proper. You’ll be blocked from entering the door to the north, but if you pop the crystal above it with an arrow, the gate will open, giving you access.
1F: Foyer
The ooccas here act just like chickens; pick them up and run off the edges of the platforms to glide to the next one. Do this to reach the middle platform, then clawshot your way up to the vine-covered pillar above you, then repeat the oocca flight procedure to reach the north end of the room.
1F: Entrance Hall
Three doors, three sections of the city to explore. Your first goal is to head west, where you’ll fight the miniboss and gain the new item from the dungeon. But first, you’ll have to head east to obtain a key required to open up the western door.
Begin by heading up to the northern door, but not heading through it. After going up the stairs, take a right and aim your clawshot at the metallic grid covering the window. Fly over the gap, then jump down to the grey stones in front of the door heading to the east, then head through.
1F: External Transition
Take a right from the door here and clawshot your way across to the vines on the other side of the gap. There’s a spinner hole near the jars, so drop your spinner inside and go to town! When you’re done tapping the B button, you’ll have extended a bridge leading off to the east. Clawshot back across the gap and head across it, but keep your iron boots handy, lest you get blown off!
1F: Clawshot Room
All you can currently do here is follow the left wall, hop across the small gap, then clawshot your way off to the right and drop down to find a Small Key in a chest. Clawshot to the metal grid, then hop your way back to the door and return to the Entrance Hall. The dragon that inhabits the castle will destroy the bridge; guess you’ll have to find another way to return!
When you’re in the Entrance Hall again, head out the western door.
It's easy to miss this switch, but now you won't make that mistake.
1F: External Transition
In order to get from the Entrance Hall to the interior section of the Western City, you’re going to have to pass through an open-air section of the area. Unfortunately, again, there’s no bridge! To make one, take a left from the door, kill the man-eating plants, and use the spinner hole at the end of the walkway. Unlock the door with your key to move on.
1F: Fan Room
First off, move to the left of the entrance and defeat the slug there. Move out to the jars nearby and face north to see a red crystal. Go ahead and tag it with your clawshot to shut off one of the fans farther along in the room, then retrace your steps back to the fans that are blocking your path. Use your iron boots to pass through the first fan jet, then use the clawshot on the vines to get past the second fan.
You can head out the door to the west to nab the Dungeon Map. When you have it, return to the Fan Room and head south, across the grey blocks where the fan you shut off was blowing.
1F: Jump Jump Room
What will Kris Kross make you do? Oh, right: jump jump. Prepare to do a lot of it here.
Head to the southern wall first and jump one, two, three times. The third jump is a bit of a trick; the tile on the far edge of the jump is actually one of those hidden worm monsters that you last encountered way back in the Forest Temple. Kill it with your boomerang before jumping.
Jump to the north from this point. You can jump east to find a chest with 10 Rupees in it, if you wish, but your destination lies to the west, young man. Kill another tile creature and wait for the winds to die down before jumping around to the southern door.
1F/2F: Lizard Room
You come out to a room with two armored lizardmen on the south side. You can snipe them with arrows, if you like, or just finish them off with one bomb-arrow apiece. Doing so will open a gate above you. Clawshot to the vines on the south side of the room, climb up, then clawshot the chandelier in the middle of all the ooccas. Doing so will cause a fan to come on in the center of the room. Grab an oocca and jump out towards the fan jets while it’s active. Doing so will lead you to the exit on the 2F North side of the room.
2F: Oocca Riding Room
As soon as you enter this room, look up at another chandelier and clawshot it. Doing so will reveal a chest nearby. You can grab an oocca and jump to it for a 20-Rupee piece, if you like. Regardless, use an oocca and head into the jetstream in the center of the room. There’s another chest with a 50-Rupee piece in it on the far eastern side of the room, but your goal is to reach the easternmost jetstream and let it blast you and an oocca to the north.
When you’re on the northern half of the room, float over to the eastern platform and pull down the chandelier there. That’ll start a jetstream off to the west. Float to it, and it’ll push you up to a gap in the wall leading to the western half of the room. Head through the exit to the north.
2F - B3: Riding The Wind
This is a very tall room, with five full stories of dungeon inside of it. You eventually need to get all the way to the bottom, but first you might want to try latching onto the chandelier on the uppermost floor here and using it to open a doorway below. That leads to the same room where you obtained the dungeon map earlier, so there’s no pressing need to visit it right away.
Instead, grab an oocca and start gliding down to the bottom of the room. You have to glide from platform to platform while avoiding the jets of wind that travel horizontally; they’ll push you out into the ether and cause you to restart. Still, your goal is to reach the bottom of the room and head through the western door there.
This guy’s easy. Watch him fly around while remaining z-targeted on him. He’ll eventually stop and put his shield between his body and you; this indicates that he’s preparing for an attack. Before he can do so, use the clawshot to drag him close to you and slash away with a few normal attacks. That’s basically the entire fight. He’ll eventually get frustrated and fly through the open windows in the room in an attempt to surprise you, but if you keep two of them in view at all times you stand a good chance of intercepting him before he does so. Keep hitting him until he dies.
When he does go down, a gate above you will open up. The chest inside contains another Clawshot, resulting in no fewer than two clawshots! That means you now have double clawshots! Yay! What that allows you to do is attach yourself to a clawshot target, then fire another clawshot without detaching from the first one. Go ahead and give it a whirl. After equipping the claws, attach yourself to the ceiling here and lower yourself down until you have an eye on the other claw targets on the ceiling. Press B again to aim and fire your clawshot at them, then turn around and aim at the vines growing in the fan in the center of the room. Climb up and return to the Riding The Wind room.
B3 - B1: Riding The Wind
Start using the double clawshot to climb the claw targets that line the room. Eventually, your only shot will be to hit a chandelier that’s dangling down. Doing so will open a gate below you. With your analog stick, extend your chain downwards until you’re hanging right in front of the gate, then use the other clawshot to latch on to one of the targets behind the open gate and fly through it before the gate closes.
B2: Jump Jump Room
You’re now on the bottom level of the Jump Jump Room. You can use your z-targeting to get an eye on the claw triggers here, so target the first one, hit B to shoot out a clawshot, then repeat the process until you reach the eastern end of the room, where you have to let go of your target to fall to a stone platform. The Compass will be in a chest here.
1F: Western Transition
You have to use the clawshots to move along underneath the bridge here. First, use arrows to kill the plants in your way, then clawshot to the grids, lower yourself down, and repeat the process until you reach the vines on the far side, which will let you climb up and return to the Entrance Hall.
Time to return to the eastern wing for some more fun! You can use your double clawshot to move past the entrance hall to the door leading to the east. On the windy bridge (which is now half-destroyed), you can use Z-targeting to target the plants that fly above the broken bridge and clawshot your way across to the eastern door leading to the eastern wing of the city.
1F/B1/B2: Clawshot Room
Head over to near the chest where you got the Small Key earlier. Latch onto the ceiling, then lower yourself down through the gaps in the floor. You should be able to Z-target a series of clawshot targets leading to the west. When you hit the last one, drop down to floor B2. Target the clawshot point to your north, then turn around and look up. There are two clawshot targets here. Aim at the one on the right, then grapple across to the platform here to find a chest with arrows in it. Then, grapple across the gap at the left clawshot point, then hit the grate nearby to drop to a platform. You should be on floor B1 now.
Head north through the hole in the wall, take a left, then drop down to the platform below you. Turn around, and you should see a pair of plants on the ceiling to the north of you. Kill them with arrows, grapple to the clawshot point that’s revealed, then lower yourself down until you can hit the crystal in the alcove nearby. That will open a gate on the opposite wall. Grapple yourself up from there back to the northeastern corner of 1F. There are two chests here, containing bombs and rupees. Nab them if you wish before heading north.
1F: Cylinder Room
You’re going to face another large plant at the beginning of this room. Slash its head off and throw a bomb into its neck to destroy it. Then, grapple off to the eastern side of the room to a clawshot point, then grapple from there to some vines on a pillar to your right.
You should be on 2F now. Move to the west and hop up onto the small grey ledge there. Start creeping along towards the man-eating plant there (although it’s best to shoot it with arrows before you get close). The chest here contains arrows. Keep moving to the southeast. You’ll eventually spot a clawshot point above you, but ignore it and continue moving to the south (you’ll have to go hand-over-hand on the next set of rock) to find a Piece of Heart.
With that in your possession, move back across the handhold until you can spot the clawshot point above you. Clawshot to that target, then another one, then some vines, then to another target on the center of the ceiling. Drop down from here to the little walkway leading south. Don’t bother fighting the lizard if you don’t want to.
Move the chain up and down to fit through these holes in the walls.
3F: The Garden
Plenty of grass and man-eating plants here. Kill anything that you like, then look to the skies! There’s a floating clawshot target that runs a route here; in fact, there are many of them. You’ll need to clawshot around quite a bit to reach them.
Start clawshotting and moving south. You can stay attached to the plants all the time, if you wish, but if you drop down to the ground on occasion and check your map, you can find a few chests in the area; they mostly contain Rupees. There’s one chest on the southern round platform that contains Rupees, but more importantly, there’s a Poe’s Soul nearby.
When you attach to plants and start heading north, you’ll have to extend your chain to fit through the holes in the walls to make it all the way to the northwestern exit. The last plant won’t drop you off there; you’ll have to grapple to the exposed piping on the walls below you to reach it.
There are more floating plants here. They’ll take you to the western doorway here if you quickly move past them. When you land, though, turn around and shoot as many of the flying enemies as you can with arrows. Now, see how there’s also a souteastern door in this zone? If you grapple your way back across the plants that lead you there, you can head through and find another Piece of Heart. Do so, then return to the Sky Corridor and head west.
3F/4F: Lizard Habitat
Feel free to head into the doorway on the 3F level of this area. The chest you see on your map has a 20-Rupee piece inside of it, and there’s not much else to see there. Both of the armored lizards here drop 50 Rupees when killed, although that will likely already be more than you can carry.
When you’re ready to move on, find the vines leading to an upper platform and shoot them with your clawshot. Shoot as many birds as you can spot in the area to clear the path, then morph into wolf form and cross the rope here. You can head left or right from this spot. To the left, you can climb some vines and cross more ropes to find chests with 20 and 50 Rupees inside, as well as a Poe’s Soul. To the right, you can cross some more ropes to find the door leading to the center area here.
4F: Fan Room
Kill or avoid the two large armored animals here (if you dodge their charge attacks, they’ll hit the wall, allowing you to easily hit their rear areas), then attach your Iron Boots and clawshot to the large chandelier above the fan. That’ll shut it off. Then drop down and nab the Big Key from the chest.
Find the hole in the ground here and drop down. You’re now directly over the Entrance Hall. Open the chest here for some more Rupees. Now, when you’re ready to move on, grapple the grate on the ceiling of this room, above the fan spinner, and lower yourself on your chain into the Entrance Hall. If you look north, you’ll spot another chandelier recessed into the ceiling. Attach yourself to it and equip your Iron Boots to pull it down. That will start a fan on the northern side of the room.
Ride these fanblades to reach the northern wing of the city.
1F: Exterior Fanblade Corridor
Head out through the northern door of the Entrance Hall to reach the Fanblade Corridor. Since you activated the fan that’s blowing north, the fanblades here will be spinning, and each one will have a bit of mesh attached to it. You need to clawshot your way north, attaching yourself to each fanblade, until you reach the northern fan (which isn’t blowing). Attach yourself to the grate near it, then drop down and look behind the blade to fnid 20 Rupees in a chest, then drop down and head through the northern door.
1F - 5F: Ascension Room
Time to get your way up to the top of the northern wing to face the end boss of the dungeon. You’re going to have to start by fighting two of the armored, flying soldiers that you faced off before you obtained the double clawshot. Not much to say about this fight, except to lock onto one of them and pull them towards you, and hope that the other soldier doesn’t attack you in the meantime.
When both birds are dead, clawshot to the grate in front of the fan, and from there to another fanblade. Hit the crystal on the southern wall here to start the fanblades a-moving. Now all you need to do is start grappling from blade to blade to start climbing the room. When you hit the uppermost blade, you’ll need to flip another switch to rotate it, then hit the target above the door leading to the boss fight.
Hit the grate on the pillar near the door, then clawshot to the vines nearby to climb up to the top of this tower, where Argorok reveals himself.
The first phase of Argorok is fairly easy. Equip your iron boots and clawshot your way to one of the pillars in the area, staying about halfway up. Eventually Argy will float up to the middle of the area and stare at you for a bit. When you’re able to Z-target his tail, clawshot your way over to it. Your iron boots will pull him down to the ground, where his armor will shatter. Repeat this process two or three times to destroy the armor enough to reveal the beast’s weak spot on its back.
After the weak spot is exposed, it’ll start raining, which will cause a ring of small clawshot plants to rise up into the air, above the pillars. You need to reach them to finish the dragon off.
Clawshot your way up the pillars until you reach the top of one. When you can Z-target one of the plants, do so, and hang beneath it until the dragon roars. It’ll spit fire at you, but it’s easy to dodge: just hold down the Z button to target the plants and tap B to move between them at a rapid pace. The fire will tail along behind you, but won’t hit you.
When the fire stops, continue moving along the plants until you’re directly behind Argorok’s back. From there, manually aim your clawshot at the weak spot, pull yourself over to him, and start slashing away at the weak spot. You’ll need to repeat this process three times before the animal falls to the ground and dies. Grab the Heart Container and move out back to Hyrule.
Shades of the chocobo race in FFX that you had to do to get Tidus' ultimate weapon.
The only Piece of Heart that you need the double clawshot for is located in Kakariko Gorge. Warp there and head to the eastern portion of the zone. You should see a clawshot target in the gorge. Hit it, hit the wall opposite, then hit the vines and crawl around to the chest.
If you’re missing any of the other Pieces of Heart from earlier in the game, this is a good time to track them down. In particular, donating 1000 Rupees to the Goron in Malo’s store in Kakariko will enable you to talk to the Elder outside the store to try and bring some hot springwater to the Goron that lounges around outside Castle Town. You have to dodge all the enemies in your path, including the ones that pop up from underground and spin around you, in order to get the water there while it’s still hot and without breaking the container. You can check for some strategies on this by hitting our Heart Container locations page later in this guide.
If you return to the STAR Game in Castle Town, your double clawshot will enable you to have a better chance of beating the new course that is offered to you. Do so for a 100-arrow quiver. This is completely optional; it’s unlikely that you’ll ever run out of arrows with the 60-arrow quiver.
Return to the Mirror and place the pieces that you’ve found in it. The cutscene that follows will reveal some shocking truths!!!!!11!!!!one!!! Enter the twilight world through the white panel in front of the Mirror and enter the Palace of Twilight.
Room 1
Not much to see here at the moment. Head down the steps to the east to enter the east wing of the castle.
The first floor of the Palace of Twilight.
Room 2
Make your way past the plants to the north end of the room. You’ll come across a floating Zant head here; dodge or shield yourself against its attacks and hit it with your sword a few times to kill it. Doing so will reveal a Small Key. Clawshot your way to the northern door and unlock it to head through.
Room 3
Head into the fog here and you’ll automatically change into wolf form. You’ll need to use your Senses to detect the Zant mask in the fog; kill it with leap attacks. Doing so will reveal a chest with the Compass in it, as well as one with another Small Key. Grapple up to the north platform. If you wish, you can clawshot to the southwest to find a chest with a 100-Rupee piece in it.
Room 4
A huge, empty room. This almost always means that there’s a fight coming up, doesn’t it? Yes, yes it does. Indeed, when you drop down to the floor here, a shade of Zant will attack you. Or rather, it will summon in lots of creatures to attack you by proxy.
Defeat the first wave of bats as best you can; by the time you do, the second wave of man-eating plants will probably be out in full effect. Just wait for a second, and they’ll all disappear. Now you can start taking on Zant himself. He’ll continue to warp around the room every few seconds, but will eventually materialize and create another ball of magical energy above his head. When he does this, quickly close the gap with him and hit him! You’ll be able to get a few shots in before he fades away, and if you hit him before he releases the ball of energy, you’ll disrupt it and won’t have to fight any more monsters.
That’s basically the long and short of it. There’s no way to predict where Zant will materialize at, but his whole summon-ball-and-throw-it thing will take a few seconds to complete, so even if he’s across the room, you should be able to quickly roll to him and attack him, even after he throws his energy. If you’re having a hard time getting to him, you may want to try using your wolf form.
Now, when Zant’s dead, you’ll be able to attack the hand in the north end of the room to get it to release the Sol. You have to pick this up and bring it all the way back to Room 1. Easier said than done, obviously, as the hand will detach itself from the ground and follow you throughout the palace in an attempt to retrieve it. If you drop the Sol, or if you stand still, the hand will move over it, pick it up, then start moving it back towards the northern room here.
Some ground rules: a good way to temporarily halt the progress of the hand is to stand underneath it, wait for its shadow to move over you, then run out from underneath it before it falls to the ground. You can also stun it by hitting it with the clawshot, but you can’t kill it. If it grabs the Sol, you still have a chance to retrieve it by clawshotting the Sol while it moves to the north, but this is difficult to do, since you can’t lock onto the Sol.
Anyway, grab the Sol, bring it to the middle of the room (it’ll banish the darkness and let you move into the fog), and place it into the receptacle on the floor there. That’ll net you a stairwell leading to the south. Move up it, then turn around and clawshot the Sol to you from the top of the steps before moving back to Room 3.
Room 3
Drop down into the center of the room and move into the fog. Drop the Sol into the receptacle and quickly spin-attack the small shadow beings here. Climb up the steps that were raised; if the red hand gets close enough, you can whack it with your sword three times to temporarily render it immobile. Reach the top of the steps and clawshot the Sol, then throw it above the ledge to the south and climb up after it. (You have to throw it near the jars, or it’ll bounce and roll back down.) Grab it, avoid the shadow beings, then drop down to the southern door and move on.
Ah, this isn't very fun at all.
Room 2
The red hand will immediately follow you into this room, so stand still for a second until its shadow passes over you. Run south before it crashes down, and you’ll net yourself a few seconds to work with. (Don’t worry about the chest you see in this room, by the way; we’ll come back for it later.)
Note that the room is slanted downward to the north. Any time you drop the Sol, it’ll roll towards the hand, so it’s best not to drop it! The worst threat here are the man-eating plants, who’ll lunge at you when you get near. Fake them out by getting close, until they are ready to lunge, then move away from them until they do so. Quickly move past them while they’re recovering and head to the southern door. If you do lose the Sol to the hand, get back to the northern end and line up a clawshot attack on it!
Room 1
Use the Sol on all the Twili in the area to revert them to their normal states. They won’t talk to you, for whatever reason, but it’s still the polite thing to do. Place the Sol in one of the two receptacles on the main platform here, and you’ll open up a platform that will float you over to the western side of the area.
Room 5
Clawshot your way to the ceiling target here, then drop down onto the moving platform. Jump to the north, shielding yourself from the Zant head’s fire, until you reach the platform there and can kill it. Doing so will reveal a Small Key. Use it on the northern door.
Room 6
Morph into wolf form and head into the fog in front of you. Kill all three shadow beings at once to drop the gates, then go after the Zant heads that appear. They’re perfectly killable in wolf form; just use your jumping attack three times on them to make them disappear, then three more times to finish them off for good.
When you’ve revealed the secret chest, head north and start clawshotting around the room. There are four chests in the area total: two with Rupees, one with the Dungeon Map, and the secret one with the Small Key. Grab the key, at the very least, and head north.
Room 7
Another Zant fight, similar to the first one. Kill him, grab the Sol, then place it in the receptacle in the mist to make a stairwell. Kill the shadow beings, if necessary, then run up the steps and clawshot the Sol back to you.
Hee hee! The hand is lost! Isn't that cute?
Room 6
If you act quickly here, you can really confuse the hand. Drop down and head into the middle of the mist and drop the Sol into the receptacle. The stairs that raise should be tall enough to block the hand’s passage towards the Sol, and it will often get confused and wander around a bit. If you don’t manage to get the stairs up in time, pick up the Sol, walk to the northwestern corner of the lower level, get it to drop down to the ground, then run back to the receptacle and drop it again.
Head to the north and clawshot your way up to a point where you can drop down to the stairs. Move up to the southern end of them and clawshot the Sol back to you, then head back to Room 5.
Room 5
Lure the hand over your position and make it crash down before attempting these jumps. If at all possible, jump two platforms at a time before stopping and waiting for them to realign; that’ll get you to the middle platform that much quicker. When you do, the Sol will light up the two orbs there and create a platform to guide you to the southern exit.
Room 1
Place the second Sol on the center platform to obtain a super-charged, light-powered Master Sword. When you swing it, it will deal way more damage to enemies here in the twilight world, and will also be used to push back the fog; no more need to carry a Sol around. In fact, if you head into Room 5 and Room 2, you can swing your sword to uncover the fog and find two Pieces of Heart. (Spin attacks are best for fog-clearing!)
When you’re ready, head north and clear out the fogbank with your spin attack. Then head into main portion of the tower.
Clear out the fog and head to the northern end of the room. You probably saw the two receptacles on the ground beneath the fog. Well, there are two Sols on the northern side of the room, but these don’t clear the fog for some reason. Clear it with your sword, then grab the Sol and bring it back to the receptacle. When both are in place, a set of steps leading upward will appear. Head up and slash the black ball there to turn it white. Doing so will create a floating lift.
The upper floor of the Palace.
Ride the lift to the platform on the western side of the room. Kill all of the Zant heads that appear to receive a Small Key, then stand in the middle of the three stones and spin attack to hit them all at once. You may have to do it a couple of times for it to take, but when it does, another lift will appear. Ride ‘em, cowboy.
Room 9
First things first: cut the falling fog barricade with a spin attack and jump through. Start climbing the walls here with your clawshot; at the top, you’ll find the Big Key.
Drop back down to ground level and spin attack the two black globes. That’ll cause a platform to come up which will shuffle you to the south, where a Zant head awaits you. Kill it, light the globes, return to the main balcony here, then kill the rest of the Zant heads to obtain the Small Key. Unlock the door and move on.
Room 10
A long, involved series of lifts and jumps here. Begin by killing the shadow beings to drop the barriers, then clear out the fog with your sword. There are four black globes on the ground; spin attack them to raise a lift and rise up. There are going to be more lifts appearing in mid-air, but some of them lead nowhere but back to the ground.
From the first lift, jump to the east lift, which will glide you to the east across the room. Two lifts will appear in front of you; jump to the one on the left. You’ll rise up to a platform; clawshot above it and drop down. The lift nearby will move to the other side of the room, where a Zant head is firing at you; clawshot there and kill it, then clawshot to the ceiling and wait for the lift running back and forth to come underneath you. It’ll lead to a set of platforms across the way. Clawshot to them, kill the Zant head, grab the Small Key. A new lift will have appeared by the middle platform here. Ride it up to the locked door, head through, and kill all the shadow beings before moving on to meet with Zant.
Zant’s got issues. Ganon-related issues. Listen to his spiel, then get ready for a fight. Numerous fights, in fact, but none are very difficult.
Zant shoots magic at you here while levitating above the pool of acid. Keep your shield up, but drop it to hit him with the boomerang, even if you take a bit of damage. When you hit him, he’ll drop to the pool and jump back to shore. Nail him with your sword when he does.
Use your iron boots to prevent Zant from shaking you around on the platform, wait for him to shoot you with magic, then de-equip the boots and run over to whack him while he’s standing there panting.
As soon as you set down here, equip the Iron Boots and the Zora Armor. A huge statue will rise up in front of you. Wait for it to expel air through the nostrils, then watch as the statue opens up and Zant fires on you. When he’s resting, use the clawshot to drag him towards you and hit him with your sword. After this happens, four statues will rise up in the middle of the arena. Get in the middle of them, wait until you see one open up, then repeat the process. You may need to unequip the iron boots to swim closer to him here.
This fight takes place where you had your very first miniboss fight against the orangutan. No special tools required; just follow him around and roll into the pillars that he stands on when he fires at you. Hit each pillar twice to drop him to the ground and, again, hit him with your sword.
This is basically a copy of the fight with Blizzeta. Zant will grow to super-size and try to drop down and crush you. Roll out of the way, then turn around, Z-target one of his feet, and hit it with the ball and chain. When that’s done, he’ll start hopping around on one foot and get very, very small. Quickly put away the ball and chain, take out your sword, anticipate his movement, and strike at him with your sword. This will be difficult to do if you head straight at him; try to anticipate his motions, cut him off, and stab him.
When Zant runs out of magic, you and he will plop down in front of Hyrule Castle for your final duel. At this point, the fight basically revolves around blocking and slashing. In that order.
Zant's limited number of attacks will prove his undoing.
At the very beginning of the fight, Zant will start warping around and wildly slashing at you. Give him a few good whacks until he settles into a rhythm. Try to stay at the middle of the little arena that you’re in; if you stand near the edge he’ll knock you into it for extra damage, even if you block him. Anyway, he’s got a couple of basic attacks that can be blocked, and one spin attack that...can also be blocked. Wow, this doesn’t sound too hard!
And...it’s actually not very hard at all. You’ll get hit a bit, thanks to his warping ability, but if you stand in the middle of the arena and tap Z whenever you hear him warp into the area for another attack run, you’ll usually be able to get your shield up by the time he hits you. When he’s done twirling around, he’ll stand still; take the opportunity to whack him good. A few rounds of this, and he’ll keel over, half-dead. Midna will finish the job for you.
Now would be a great time for you perfectionists to track down any remaining Pieces of Heart or pursue the upgrade path for anything you still want to upgrade; if you kept giving money to the Goron in Malo’s Mart, you may be able to buy the magic armor in their shop in the central area of Castle Town, for instance. You may also want to take a jaunt into the Cave of Ordeals in the Gerudo Desert. If you manage to get to the bottom of it (after fighting your way through 50 rooms full of enemies), you’ll earn the right to fill your bottles with Great Fairy Tears. Doing so is mostly irrelevant at this point, since you should have a few bottles by now, and even standard old blue potions should be enough to see you through to the end of the game.
Anyway, when you’re ready to head inside, feel free to do so.
The exterior portions of Hyrule Castle.
Room 1
The exterior courtyard of the castle is a relatively serene place, but as you’ll discover, there are numerous hidden fighting arenas scattered around, that will close around you when you enter them and force you to fight against numerous enemies. Still, you should have a large amount of health by now, and if you haven’t learned how to do a spin attack by now...then you’re unlikely to have gotten this far, let’s just say.
You’ll have to take both the eastern and western exits from this room to find a pair of Small Keys that will let you enter the castle. You can do either path first, if you like. For the sake of cardinal law, we’ll head east first.
Room 2
Defeat all the goblins that ambush you in the first room, then move off to the eastern passage, find the chain sticking out near the northern door there, and pull it to unlock the door.
You’ll have to fight the leader of the orcs when you step into the little fighting ring on the north end of this room. He’s got the same bigass axe as he did when you fought him in Gerudo, but he’s not so tough. If you continually attempt to Back Slice him, you’ll be able to penetrate his guard and beat him down. Be careful if you hit him rapidly enough to cause him to go down on one knee, though; he’ll pay you back by getting up and unleashing a massive spin attack. His blows can take off as much as three full heart containers, but you should be able to out-guile him if you keep on your toes. He’ll give you a Small Key when he leaves town.
The ever-loquacious orc leader respects your toughness.
There are two chests in the area, each with rupees. One is north of the fighting arena; the other can be found by heading up the steps to the south of the arena and jumping down into the southern portion of the room from there.
Room 3
Head back to the main courtyard and proceed to the west. Plenty of goblins here, with archers in the towers and foot soldiers on the ground. Feel free to snipe the archers if you wish, or just ignore the lot of them and roll your way to the north where a pair of boars are penned up. Hop aboard one of them and use it to smash your way to the west and from there to the far northern part of the room.
Boomerang time! There are six pillars with windmills atop them here. You need to hit four of them in a specific pattern to unlock the door nearby. You can find the pattern by using your boomerang on the leaves in front of the door. Ignoring the pillars in the southwest and northwest, the pattern goes west, south, north, east. Open the door and nab the Dungeon Map. Ignore the ladder here for the moment; instead, change into wolf form and use your Senses to find a hole in the ground near the north wall near the pillars. Dig through to reach Room 4.
Room 4
It suddenly starts to rain when you enter this room, which prevents you from lighting the lanterns on the east side of the graveyard. Need to find some way to shut off the waterworks... Do so by fighting your way past the skeletons to the west, and look around near the tree in the north. There’s a rock in the ground near it; blow it up with a bomb, then step on the switch that’s revealed to open the door to the west. Head inside and light the torch to stop the rain, then quickly run back to the eastern door and light both the torches there to reveal a pair of statues.
Now, use your dominion rod to control the statues and bring them to the southern side of this room. There’s a pair of holes in the ground there; slot the statues into the holes, then hop up onto the stones nearby and jump across the statues to find another Small Key. Take it, then head back to Room 1. (There’s a boar near the pillars that you can use to smash through the barricades.)
Head through the locked door leading to the main castle and proceed inside. You’ll have to fight your way through a number of enemies here, so try to be at full health and use the Great Spin attack on them to quickly clear them out.
The upstairs portions of the castle.
When they’ve all been killed, head up the small flight of steps on the ground floor here, then clawshot your way up to the chandelier above where the chest appeared. It contains the dungeon’s Compass. Clawshot your way to the door on the northern wall and head through.
Room 6
Kill the armored knight here to drop the force fields, then light the two lanterns on the western side of the room. That will raise a set of steps in the northern end of this little arena. Unfortunately, that won’t get you all the way to the top of the room. To do that, climb the steps, aim your boomerang at the lone lantern near the urn of lantern oil, and throw the boomerang. While the boomerang is in mid-air, move to the north and drop down onto the northernmost step of the stairs. When the lantern goes out, the stair will rise, but it’ll rise up too quickly for you to get onto it if you wait for your boomerang to return to you before moving.
At the northern end of the room, you’ll have two choices of path: you can either head east or west. Both lead you to the same place, but the eastern path will have a decidedly tougher fight included in it. You can technically take both paths, if you like, but we recommend the western path if you just want to get to Ganon. The eastern path will let you net 200 Rupees from a chest in Room 5, though.
There are plenty of pictures in the castle. Shoot their cords to reveal...stuff.
Room 7
There’s a set of four lanterns here for you to light. You have to light them in a certain order, though. Shoot an arrow at the painting on the wall here to reveal the pattern: it goes northwest, southeast, northeast, southwest. Doing that will unlock the door.
Room 8
Kill both of the armored lizards here to move on to the balcony. If you step out into Room 5, you can depress a switch that will lower a chandelier, allowing you to bypass Room 6 if you ever leave the castle and want to return this way.
Room 9
Kill the two enemies here, then start slicing the ropes holding up the paintings with your bow and arrow. Each painting will reveal a crystal. The second painting closest to the locked door will hold the crystal that unlocks it; the rest will all drop chu jellies around you. It’s best to hit a crystal, then quickly roll away from your position to avoid being surrounded.
Room 10
Damn, two of the heavily armored knights await you here! It’s possible to fight them one at a time by creeping along the right wall until the rightmost knight starts walking towards you, then moving back towads the door you entered from. If you take them on at the same time, you’ll have a hard time of it.
Tip: If you head back into Room 5 from here, you can nab a chest with 50 Rupees in it. You can also step on a switch to reveal a chest with a 200-Rupee piece inside. Drop to the ground and clawshot your way to it.
Room 11
The balcony here is the sight of a couple of fights. To the west, you’ll take on a flying dragon knight for the right to claim a Small Key. To the east, you’ll watch as your D&D-playing adventure buddies finally step up to the plate to kill a couple goblins. Big help there, guys. Thanks. Anyone want to come help fight Ganon? ...hey, where are they going? Anyway, you’ll grab the Big Key when the monsters here are dead.
Time to head up to Ganon. Use the small key to unlock the path to the third floor here. The first room you inhabit will be filled with blocks that fall away under your feet as you jump to them. Fortunately for you, there are also a bunch of ghosts here which you can see with your wolf Senses. Follow the Caspers’ pointing to navigate through the room, jumping only after you see a ghost pointing across the gap.
Follow the advice of these ghosts to reach the far end of the room.
There’s a jumping puzzle here, followed by a staircase that requires you to clawshot your way up to the top, followed by a stairwell that you’ll have to use your spinner on. For the last stairwell, you have to attach yourself to the groove on the right side first. Wait until the spiked spinner is closest to you before doing so, and you should be able to jump from side to side until you reach the top. Kill the armored knight, then head into the armory nearby to find a heaping helping of arrows, bombs, and rupees. There’s no Ooccoo in this dungeon, but if you want to head out to spend your ill-gotten gains, feel free to save your game, quit playing, then reload the game. You’ll wind up at the beginning of the castle.
Ganon initially takes control of Princess Zelda’s body to attack you. She can float above the battlefield, rendering her immune to your sword attacks, and will dodge any projectiles that you launch her way. So...how do you beat her?
The answer, as usual, is that you have to turn her attacks against her. She has three: a very rare swooping attack with her sword, which can be shielded against; a triforce-shaped glow on the ground which will hit you for one heart container unless you leave the area before it zaps you; and an energy ball that she’ll charge up on the end of her sword and fling at you. It’s this last attack that you have to reflect back to her.
How? Well, your shield attack won’t do the job. No, you have to slash your sword at the energy ball to send it back to Zelda. Just wait until it’s on its way, hit the ball with your sword, and it’ll be reflected back towards Zelda. The catch? You have to be almost underneath her to actually pull the maneuver off. If you slash the ball from far away, you’ll have an easy time doing so, but she’ll simply reflect it right back to you. No, you have to be quite close to pull this maneuver off. We preferred to stay almost underneath her and use the spin attack to reflect the ball when it was thrown. Getting the timing down right is tricky, but it can be done with a bit of practice.
Ganon now shifts into his own wolf form, although it’s really more of a mutant wolf/boar/thing. He doesn’t really have attacks here, per se, he just charges at you and attempts to trample you, and he’ll usually be successful. Sometimes he’ll also teleport away and materialize above your head, like Blizzeta. Watch for ominous shadows and dodge out of the way.
Equip your Hero’s Bow here and use it to shoot the white target on Ganon’s forehead when he charges at you. When you hit it, the beast will flip over onto its side and slide towards you, so try to get your shield up as quickly as possible to avoid damage. Regardless of whether you’re successful or not, you have to quickly move around to Ganon’s exposed belly and hit it with your sword.
He may be big, but you've got Midna on your side.
After a couple of successful belly-attacks, Ganon will start to teleport just before your arrow connects with his forehead. This is your cue to shift to wolf form and go lupus a lupus. Wait for Ganon to teleport, then look at the shifting teleport portals that will appear on one side of the arena. One of them will eventually turn blue, just a couple of seconds before Ganon bursts out of it and charges at you. If you face the blue portal, and stand around halfway across the room from it, Ganon will bust out and you’ll get a "Grab" prompt just before he hits you. Hit the A button to grab him, then tilt the analog stick to one side to throw him to the ground. Then, again, run around to his belly and attack it.
In wolf form, he’ll survive two series of jump-attack-and-gnarly-muches, so after the first go-round, smash some jars and get your health back up. There’s a fairy in the jar to the left of the door that’ll give you a nice big boost, so grab that, then grab Ganon again and attack his belly to finish him off.
You’ll find yourself jousting with Ganon from the back of Epona at this point, while Zelda attempts to help you out by shooting light arrows from her bow. Ganon will attempt to rush you at times and drop you from the horse, but this attack rarely hits; more problematic is his ability to summon five spectral horsemen and send them flying at you while you attempt to pursue him. The horsemen are fairly well spaced, though, so as long as you approach them straight on you can usually dodge between them.
In order to take Ganon down, you have to stay close enough to him for Zelda to fire her light arrows. This will require you to use the spurs on Epona; try using as many as four or five to get close to Ganon, and turn along with him to cut him off when he turns. When she manages to hit Ganon with an arrow, he’ll glow with light and slow down quite a bit, allowing you to use your final spur counters to close with him and hit him with your sword. It’s best just to try and slash him from the side, although you can also use your spin attack while riding (which would seem to break Link’s back if he really tried it, but hey, it’s a fantasy game).
That’s more or less the long and short of it. Dodge ghost riders, shoot light arrow, get close, hit him with sword. Complications arise in the way that Zelda will often miss with her arrows, especially when Ganon’s turning, but so long as you stay close, she’ll keep trying. She doesn’t run out of ammo or anything, so just stay close and take the guy down.
(Note that if you’re watching our video for this section, we got very lucky and Zelda didn’t miss many of her shots. Normally the battle is a bit more drawn out.)
Last, but not least, Ganon will unsheathe the sword that was so kindly given him by the sages of the Mirror of Twilight, and confront you in battle. You’ve got no help from Epona or Zelda here; this is truly a one-on-one fight for the ages. Only your Master Sword can be used here; nothing else will damage Ganon.
Ganon moves and acts similarly to one of the armored knights that you’ve fought a few times in the game, but first encountered just before you won the Dominion Rod. In other words, he’s big, slow, and has a big weapon. Luckily for you, there’s not really any big trick to beating him.
The attacks are what you might expect: he’ll try to hit you with his sword. Oh, and he kicks you every now and again. None of these attacks are really likely to hit you, save perhaps for his own version of the spin attack. He can also leap into the air and drop back down for a strike; roll away from him when he jumps.
As far as attacking him goes, this is mostly a matter of continually using the Back Slice maneuver and hoping it goes through, which it will a fairly good amount of the time. Normally he’ll block your attacks, but every so often you’ll penetrate his defense and be able to get a few blows in, and that’s going to add up over the course of the fight. All you really need to do is stay close to him and continually roll around him, attempting to strike his back, then roll to one side when he attempts his jumping attack. Since most of Ganon’s attacks strike in front of him, your rolling will also act as a defensive measure. When you’re far away from him, resist using your jump attack to close in; he’ll almost always dodge and counterattack. If you unlocked the Jump Strike hidden skill, though, that will work quite well for closing the gap between you and he.
And that’s about it. There’s no particular secret strategy here, like the whole jump-and-strike-Ganon’s-head deal from Wind Waker. You can, however, hit the A button when the "Chance" prompt comes up to engage Ganon in a clash of steel; win, and you'll get to deal heavy damage to him. It's not necessary to beat him, though, and is fairly difficult to pull off anyway. Continue to pile on the damage until you see Ganon take a knee. That’ll be the first sign you’re getting to him. Keep it up, and eventually he’ll fall on his back. Z-target him and use the Ending Blow to finish him off. Don’t forget to watch the credits; there’s a bonus scene included near the end.
You have three major collections to undertake in Twilight Princess: Poe’s Souls, insects, and Pieces of Heart.
Poe’s Souls can be turned in to Jovani in Castle Town. His house is on the western side of town, just north of Telma’s Bar; you’ll know you’re at the right one when you see all the cats outside mewling. Morph into a wolf and crawl through the hole nearby to enter the building and speak to Jovani. He tells you that his soul has been stolen and separated into parts.
They look like lanterns to the untrained eye, but these Poes are actually ghosts when you see them in Wolf form.
Poe’s Souls are the flying lanterns that you see in the game world; they only appear at night in the overworld, but which appear at all hours in dungeons and caves. To attack them, morph into wolf form, use your senses to see their true form, and attack them, then use your Ending Blow to rip the Poe’s Soul out of their chest.
When you find 20 Poe’s Souls, you can return them to Jovani, who’ll give you an empty Bottle. That’s reward enough for most people. If you manage to find all 60 Poe’s Souls (which will take you as far as the Cave of Ordeals), you’ll reportedly be able to speak to his cat for an infinite amount of 200 Rupee pieces, but by the time you manage to find all 60 Poe’s Souls, you likely will have moved beyond the point where you actually have anything to buy.
20 Poe’s Souls are easy enough to find in your normal adventuring through dungeons. We’re not going to make an entire list of the locations here; if you’re interested in finding all 60 (which is only necessary if you’re a Zelda completionist), we’ll refer you to gamefaqs.gamespot.com, where there is undoubtedly an FAQ in the works for their location.
There’s a woman named Agitha in Castle Town who has a rather creepy obsession with insects. She wants you to track down 12 pairs of insects and return them to her, for her odd insect ball that she’s throwing.
Insects are available at all hours of day and night, although they glow white, so they’re easier to spot at night. To collect them, get close and just pick them up! Many of them will be out of easy reach, though, so you’ll need to use your boomerang or clawshot to grab them and bring them back to you. All insects give off a distinct ringing sound when you’re in their location, so keep an ear out for that.
When you return one insect to Agitha, she’ll reward you with a wallet that can carry 600 Rupees, instead of the 300-Rupee wallet you start out with. Further insect turn-ins will net you 50 Rupees per insect, but if you turn in the second insect of a pair (they always come in male and female varieties), you’ll net 100 Rupees instead, for a total of 150 Rupees per pair. Since there are 12 pairs, that’s some nice coin you’ll be getting. Again, though, there’s not much to spend your money on in Twilight Princess, outside of the two Pieces of Heart that cost 1,000 Rupees apiece, so you don’t need to really go out of your way to find these guys. If you net all 24 of them, you’ll get a wallet capable of containing 1,000 Rupees, which is far in excess of what you’ll actually need.
Again, there already is an FAQ for these insects up over at gamefaqs.gamespot.com, so we’ll refer you to that site if you actually want to collect all of them. It’s not necessary to do so, especially since the game doesn’t really offer any rewards for 100% completion or anything like that.
The following list is mostly intended to act as a checklist and a reference to the walkthrough which we wrote. All of these Pieces appear in the walkthrough, so we’re not going to get too detailed about the locations. If we simply describe a Piece as becoming available after the Snowpeak Ruins dungeon, for example, then you’d want to look at the table of contents over there, find the Snowpeak Ruins link, then click on the link below it; the listing for that Piece of Heart will likely be included there. Likewise, a number of Pieces are simply located in dungeons; refer to those dungeon walkthroughs for the specifics. All Pieces of Heart locations are bolded in the walkthrough, so let that guide your eyes.
Also note that this list is mostly ordered in the order in which you can obtain the Pieces, so if you like, feel free to print out the list and use it as an actual checklist, with pen-marked checks and everything. Two of these require substantial amounts of cash to unlocks, so we put those into the list as 44 and 45, even though they can technically be unlocked earlier in the game.
| Piece of Heart Number | Location |
|---|---|
| [ ] 01 | Hidden chest in the Faron Woods. |
| [ ] 02 | Room 7 of the Forest Temple. |
| [ ] 03 | Room 8 of the Forest Temple. |
| [ ] 04 | In a tree in Hyrule Field north of Faron. Use the boomerang to retrieve it. |
| [ ] 05 | In Kakariko Gorge, southeast of Kakariko, atop a stone in the gorge. |
| [ ] 06 | After you gain the Iron Boots, ride on Epona and do the ranch-herding game in Ordon one last time for the Heart Piece. |
| [ ] 07 | In the Goron Mines. |
| [ ] 08 | Goron Mines. |
| [ ] 09 | Can use the bombs in Kakariko to find this one, near the spring, after completing the Goron Mines. |
| [ ] 10 | Another one that can be found using bombs in Kakariko. |
| [ ] 11 | Climb up to the northern watchtower in Kakariko and speak to Telo. Complete the archery game to obtain the Piece. |
| [ ] 12 | Use a bomb in the southern section of Kakariko Gorge to unblock a cave. Head inside and find two torches. Light them both to reveal a chest. |
| [ ] 13 | When you leave Kakariko via the northeast road, look around for a path you can climb. Destroy the blocks in your path with bombs to find the piece. |
| [ ] 14 | Falbi’s Flight-by-Fowl in Lake Hylia after finding all of the light tears and freeing Hyrule from shadow. |
| [ ] 15 | Hena’s Fishing Hole in Zora’s Domain, near Iza’s Rapid Ride. |
| [ ] 16 | Lakebed Temple. |
| [ ] 17 | Lakebed Temple. |
| [ ] 18 | Sacred Grove, after you fight the puppetmaster. Destroy the rock in the arena with a bomb, then dig as a wolf to find the piece. |
| [ ] 19 | Head to the Spirit Spring in Lake Hylia and clawshot your way up to the room at the rear. |
| [ ] 20 | Cave in Lake Hylia, to the southeast of the warp spot. Climb the ladder and bomb the rock to find the entrance. Find two lamps and light them to reveal a chest. |
| [ ] 21 | Head to Eldin Bridge and look around at the north end of it. Clawshot to the target to find a cave with a chest inside of it. |
| [ ] 22 | In the Orc Camp in Gerudo Desert, slash at the boar that’s being cooked until it explodes. |
| [ ] 23 | Arbiter’s Grounds. |
| [ ] 24 | Arbiter’s Grounds. |
| [ ] 25 | Available in Lake Hylia after completing Arbiter’s Grounds. (This one is likely available as soon as you obtain the Master Sword, but we didn’t realize it until this point in the walkthrough.) |
| [ ] 26 | Available in Eldin Province after completing Arbiter’s Grounds. |
| [ ] 27 | Available in Lanaryu Province after completing Arbiter’s Grounds. |
| [ ] 28 | Available in Death Mountain after completing Arbiter’s Grounds. (This one is likewise probably available earlier than this.) |
| [ ] 29 | Snowpeak Ruins. |
| [ ] 30 | Snowpeak Ruins. |
| [ ] 31 | Return to Snowpeak and speak to Yeti and Yeta. Race them down to the Ruins on shards of ice, and you’ll receive a Piece for beating Yeta. |
| [ ] 32 | In Hyrule Field, north of Castle Town, there’s a cave south of the passage to Zora’s Domain. Blow the entrance, smash the ice with ball and chain, then solve three ice-pushing puzzles for the piece. Arguably the hardest one to obtain, after the hot springwater run, due to the puzzles. |
| [ ] 33 | Temple of Time. |
| [ ] 34 | Temple of Time. |
| [ ] 35 | Temple of Time. After defeating the end boss and before exiting the dungeon, use the Dominion Rod on one of the two statues just before the exit to reveal this piece. |
| [ ] 36 | Hidden Village minigame. Speak to the chicken near the howling stone as a wolf, then speak to all 20 cats to win the piece. |
| [ ] 37 | Faron Woods, after you move the statue with the Dominion Rod. |
| [ ] 38 | South end of Bridge of Eldin, after you move the statue on the north end with the Dominion Rod. |
| [ ] 39 | City in the Sky. |
| [ ] 40 | City in the Sky. |
| [ ] 41 | Kakariko Gorge. Use your double clawshots on the target in the middle of the gorge. |
| [ ] 42 | Palace of Twilight. |
| [ ] 43 | Palace of Twilight. |
| [ ] 44 | If you head into Castle Town via the eastern entrance, there’ll be a priest standing on the north side of the road near the doors. Give him 1,000 Rupees (over a period of time, of course) and you’ll net a Piece. |
| [ ] 45 | When you get done with the Goron Mines and Malo sets up shop in Kakariko, eventually an old Goron will appear in the shop, soliciting donations for a new bridge to Castle Town. Give him 1,000 Rupees, then speak to the Goron Elder outside the shop. He’ll tell you to take a cask of hot springwater to Castle Town. You’ll have to run across the field, avoiding monsters, then splash the springwater on the Goron across the bridge. We found this incredibly frustrating, so we didn’t bother with it ourselves, but you’re welcome to throw your controller in frustration if you like. See below! |
Tip: Many, many readers have written in to suggest the following as a method of tackling the hot springwater trip. Instead of heading directly towards Castle Town, turn to your right and follow along the edge of the cliff there. If you walk closely enough to it, then you should be able to avoid all the spinning enemies entirely, leaving only birds and archers to deal with. The archers should be taken down with your arrows from long range, possibly using the hawkeye, while you can wait for the birds to get close before z-targeting them and hitting them with arrows. Alternately, you can attempt to run past the archers (if you move fast enough they shouldn't be able to hit you with arrows) and outrun the birds. Since the spinning enemies are usually the most perilous to your chances here, this plan sounds like it might work! Alternately, if you've spent the money on the magical armor, then you can use that with a full load of rupees and none of the enemies will be able to hurt you while you run around, letting you easily complete the trip.
The sequence of progression here is: Wooden Sword, Sword, Master Sword, Light Sword. Each of these swords is a requirement to proceed in the game, so you’ll automatically pick all of them up.
The armor you get proceeds as such: Hero’s Clothes, Zoran Armor, Magic Armor. The first two are obtained during the course of the game, whereas the Magic Armor will require a lot of cash. Give 1,000 Rupees to the Goran in Malo’s Mart in Kakariko to repair the bridge, then donate a furthern 2,000 Rupees to allow them to buy a shop in Castle Town’s main square. (You can reduce this latter cost to 200 rupees if you complete the hot springwater run from the shop in Kakariko to Castle Town, though.) Find the shop, and Malo will sell you the Magic Armor for 598 Rupees. Fitting that it costs so much, since it will constantly drain your Rupees while you wear it.
Yeah! Quiver! Awesome. I like just saying that word.
You can obtain a total of four bottles throughout the game. The first is obtained automatically in Ordon, while the second is found not too long after that when you buy it from the lantern-selling hippy in the Faron Woods. The third and fourth bottles can be found later in the game.
If you hand in 20 Poe’s Souls to Jovani, you’ll obtain another bottle. Lastly, if you head to Hena’s Fishing Hole in Zora’s Domain, you can stand on a bridge near a sign warning about trash. Use your fishing pole off the western side of the bridge, and you’ll start collecting junk, among which will be a bottle.
To collect more arrows, you have to head to the STAR game in Castle Town. Winning it for the first time will net you the 60-arrow quiver. This is technically possible as soon as you’re able to play it, but will get much easier when you have the clawshot. When you get the double clawshot, another course will open up; beating that will net you the 100-arrow quiver. You’ll probably never run through even 30 arrows in a row, since you can find them in jars, but the bigger, the better.
You get your first bomb bag when you buy the bombs from Barnes. The second can be found by helping out Iza at Iza’s Rapid Ride minigame; you can upgrade the bomb bag to make it bigger by completing another mini-game she offers. The third can be found by destroying a large rock in the underground portion of Zora’s Domain with a water bomb.
Both of the wallet upgrades are available via Agitha in Castle Town. Deliver one bug to her for a 600-Rupee wallet; deliver all 24 for a 1,000-Rupee wallet.
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