Here's where you find the information on how to defeat each of the bosses, including Ganondorf himself. I start with Queen Gohma and go on from there.

The Deku Tree: Queen Gohma

Gohma is the first boss you will encounter while playing Zelda. She may look menacing, but if you know her weaknesses, she's quite easy to defeat. Before you go to face her, make sure you have plenty of Deku Nuts (the things that you hurl at the ground to stun your enemies). When you first face Gohma, throw a Deku Nut at her. If this does not affect her, you're probably not close enough, so move closer and try again. When she is stunned (it's pretty obvious when she is), hit her as many times as you can with your sword. If you feel confident enough, it might be a good idea to use the jump attack (with your sword drawn, use Z-targetting and press A while pushing forward on the control stick). The jump attack does double damage. Once she gets up again, back off, because you can't hit her again. Look up as she climbs to the ceiling. She will lay 3 eggs which drop to the ground. Run and slash them quickly before they hatch. I've also heard that you can hit Gohma with the slingshot before she lays the eggs. If they do hatch, two sword hits each will kill the little brats, but be careful not to get hit by them. After you kill her babies, Gohma will drop back down again. Stun her again and repeat the whole process from the beginning several times. The more hits you can get in with your sword each time she's stunned, the fewer times you will have to repeat the process.

As with all of the bosses, don't forget to pick up the heart container left behind when Gohma is defeated; it will help you to face more difficult enemies.

After you step into the circle of light, the Deku Tree give you the Kokiri's Emerald (Spiritual Stone of the Forest) and explains a lot of things to you.

Dodongo's Cavern: King Dodongo

King Dodongo is basically a giant Komodo dragon, except that he really can spit fire--and lots of it! Don't get caught in the path of the flames, or you will be hurt badly. I advise you to have some fairies in bottles (if you have bottles) before attempting to defeat Dodongo. Also, be sure that you have the Hylian Shield equipped, because the Deku Shield will just get burned up. Have as many bombs as you can carry with you. What you are trying to do is throw a bomb into Dodongo's mouth when he is about to breath fire at you. So approach him when he is walking along the edge (you can't sneak up behind him because he always rolls away from you). When he starts to open his mouth, get a bomb out and throw it into the mouth. In a moment, it will explode inside him and he will be stunned. Quickly go and hit him with your sword. As I remember, you only get one hit before he wakes up again. When he wakes up, get out of his way, because he will start rolling and if you get hit it hurts you badly. Either go to the inner or outer edge of the path (but don't walk on the lave either). Press R and your shield will help protect you. When he's past you, get back on the path and watch him. He will stop rolling at the corner opposite from you. Approach him again and throw another bomb into his mouth. Repeat the whole process until he dies. If you run out of bombs from your bomb bag, use the bomb flowers in the corners of the room.

After all of this, the Gorons are happy, and Darunia (Big Brother) gives you the Goron's Ruby (Spiritual Stone of Fire).

Jabu Jabu's Belly: Jellyfish Creature

I actually can't remember what this one's called (don't worry, I'll find out when I re-play the game). This is one of the hardest bosses in the whole game. Seriously. You must use the Boomerang for almost all of this battle. As I remember, the first thing to do is pay attention to Navi. Use Z-targetting, and Navi will tell you which area to target at which time. First, you have to use the Boomerang to shoot down the things connecting the creature to the ceiling. The jellyfish attached to the creature will occasionally come loose and try to attack you. Use the Boomerang to send them packing. When the creature is stunned ( when it freezes and turns blue), you can hit it with your sword (as many times as you can). Just keep doing these things and eventually you'll have the creature defeated.

Perhaps even more horrific than having to face this Jellyfish Creature is having to meet up with Princess Ruto afterward. Yes, the fish princess of your worst nightmare is now willing to give you the Zora's Saphire (Spiritual Stone of Water)--but she also gives you her hand in betrothal. Yes, you get to marry the fish princess...over your dead body!

Forest Temple: Phantom Ganon

This is the first boss you meet after Link is grown up. Phantom Ganon is not the most difficult boss of all, but if you don't know how to hurt him, he can be tricky. When you enter his area, and try to leave again, he'll appear. What this guy does is ride is horse through the paintings on the walls. You will see him approaching, he will jump out of the painting, and fly through the air into the painting across the room. When he flies across the room, he sends deadly lightning bolts down to the floor. For this reason, I strongly advise standing in a corner (like where one of the Triforce symbols is on the floor). The lightning usually won't hurt you there. Now the thing is, the only time when you can hurt Phantom Ganon is when he is just about to come out of one of the paintings (when he has purple light surrounding him). You use the Fairy Bow to shoot him. Just stand in a corner where you can see two or three paintings at once and have an arrow cocked. When the horse and rider approach, there will be a real one and a false one. If you have your eye on the false one, just be patient and don't shoot (the false Ganon turns around and doesn't come out of the painting). The thing NOT to do is to run around like a farmyard chicken trying to shoot the real Ganon every time he comes out of a painting. This usually gets you nowhere. Just wait until he comes out of one of the paintings that you can see and shoot him (or the horse) when he is surrounded by purple light. You will know when you hit him because he turns red, turns around, and goes back into the same painting. Once you do this a few times, Ganon will jump off his horse and float above the floor. Now hiding in the corner won't do you any good. You can't reach him with your sword (even the jump attack), so don't waste your time trying that. You have to use the sword to bounce back the energy balls he hurls at you. They will hurt him and knock him down. Now you can hit him with your sword. When you're getting near the end, watch out because when you bounce the energy ball back to him, he will return it again. You just have to keep playing tennis with him until it hits him. Keep doing this; the last time you hit him with your sword he will die.

After this boss, Saria awakens as the Forest Sage and gives you the Forest Medalion.

Fire Temple: Volvagia

Volvagia is a dragon who terrorizes Death Mountain. He's quite different in appearance than Dodongo, the dragon from child Link's Goron dungeon. Volvagia basically does three things: flies around spitting fire at you, dumps rocks on your head, or pops his head out of one of the lava holes in the ground. The third type of behavior is the only point at which you can harm him. Put away the bow and arrows, forget about the hookshot, and don't even try to use your sword. The only weapon that you use against Volvagia is the Megaton Hammer. When he pops his head out of the ground, hit him once with it. He will growl and collapse, his head lying on the ground. Hit it again. If memory serves, you can only hit him once when he is down. If you have the Megaton Hammer out, you can Z-target the head and use the jump attack to do double damage (but make sure you have the hammer out, otherwise you'll end up just doing a roll attack). After you have hit him, Volvagia will go back down into the lava. The next time he comes out you cannot attack him. Trying to do so will only cost you many hearts. Volvagia will do one of two things when he flies up out of the hole. One thing he will do is fly low down and try to breathe fire at Link. If this attack hits you, it can take away anything from four to eight hearts at once, so try to avoid it. I just weave around, never travelling in a straight line. Eventually, Volvagia will give up and go back into one of the holes. The next time he comes out, you can attack him again. The time after that, he will fly high above, dropping rocks. I usually just run around the edge of the platform when he does this, until I see rocks falling ahead of me. That means that Volvagia is going back down into a hole, and just stay away from there to avoid getting hit. The next time he pops up, you can hit him again. This entire sequence repeats until you defeat him. When Volvagia is about to come out of one of the holes, flames will spit up around a different hole. This is a trick to deceive you. What I do is stand on the edge where I can see all of the holes, and run toward the second hole that flames come out of (if it's a time when I can attack him).

When you have defeated Volvagia, you find that Darunia (Big Brother) is the Fire Sage, and he gives you the Fire Medalion.

Water Temple: Morpha

Morpha is one of the more difficult bosses to defeat. It is a giant amoeba that grabs you and throws you against the walls. There is a little orangish-pinkish ball (the nucleus) that floats around in the pool. This is your target. You only use two weapons against this boss: the Hookshot (which by this time is upgraded to the Longshot) and a sword. It really helps if you have Biggeron's Sword (the Giant's Knife). Stand on the outer edge of the pool (not one of the islands) and get a lock on the nucleus. It's usually whirling around in the pool somewhere near you. Now, without falling into the water, keep a fair distance between yourself and the nucleus. An arm of the amoeba will come out of the water, and if you're too close, it grabs you. Once the nucleus starts travelling up into the arm, move closer (but don't touch it) and shoot the Hookshot at it. You may have to shoot several times before the nucleus gets pulled out of the arm. Once it is pulled out, hit it with your sword. You can usually hit it only once, but I've seen it hit twice before. It will bounce back into the water, so back off again. Keep an eye out for the arms--after awhile, there are two of them that come out of the water, and you have to keep on your toes. Repeat the process several times to defeat Morpha.

After this, Ruto awakens as the Water Sage and gives you the Water Medalion. She says she can't marry you now that she's a Sage (my, what a pity....:-)

Shadow Temple: Bongo Bongo

Bongo Man is really not that hard to deal with, if you keep your wits about you. To defeat him you'll need the Longshot, the Eye of Truth, and a sword (Biggeron's Sword works best). When you enter his chamber, you drop onto the middle of a giant bongo drum, and Bongo Man starts beating on it. Without the Eye of Truth you can only see his hands. First of all, go to the very edge of the drum (the one farthest from the hands). The edge of the drum is the only place where you don't get bounced up and down as he beats the drum. Use Z-targetting to lock onto one of his hands and shoot it with the Longshot. When the hand turns blue, it is stunned. Switch the target to the other hand and shoot it (the other hand usually tries to grab you, so switch and shoot quickly). Once both hands are stunned (and it doesn't last very long, so don't twiddle your thumbs), put on the Lens of Truth. You will now see that Bongo Man has exposed his red eye. Lock onto the eye and shoot it with the Longshot before he runs you over. If you hit it, Bongo Man will collapse. Hit him with your sword as many times as you can (I can get in at least 3 or 4) before he gets up again. As I said, Biggeron's Sword works better because it causes double damage. Repeat the whole process of stunning the hands and then the eye again several times. The number of times you have to do this depends on how much damage you do to the eye when it is exposed. Sometimes when you're trying to stun the hands, one of them will grab you and try to squeeze the life out of you or knock you off the drum onto the damaging surface below. Because of this danger, keep a few fairies in bottles with you.

After this, Impa awakens as the Shadow Sage and gives you the Shadow Medalion. She then tells you to go look for Zelda....

Spirit Temple: Twinrova

The boss of the Spirit Temple is actually two people--two witches, in fact. They are sisters. One of them shoots ice at you and hates fire. The other one shoots fire at you and hates ice. Since you undoubtedly have the Fire Arrow at this point, and may have the Ice Arrow if you completed the Gerudo Training Grounds, you may think that these arrows are the answer to your problems. Not so. Although they may hurt the witches a certain amount, I really couldn't see much difference. The way to defeat the witches is to turn their power back on them...or rather, back on the other one. Get up on the big central platform. If one of them shoots at you, you can use several sideways jumps (with Z-targetting) to get out of the way. These attacks hurt a lot, so keep clear of them. If you are on the big central platform, target one of the witches. If she is not preparing to attack you (if she doesn't have a swirl of fire or ice in front of her), target the other one until you find the one who's going to attack. Keep a target lock on her and hold up your mirror shield (I would equip the Master Sword during this battle, since if you have the Giant's Knife drawn you can't properly use the shield). I don't think it's possible to get into the bosses chamber without the Mirror Shield, so you should have it with you. Don't use the Hylian Shield or you'll get fried (or frozen). Keep the Mirror Shield up. The witch will fire a beam of either fire or ice (depending on which witch is which) at you. The Mirror Shield will deflect the beam back toward her, but it will not hurt her. Sometimes, the other sister will fly around behind the one that is firing at you. When this happens, move the shield slightly and if you're lucky, the beam will strike the other witch. This hurts her badly. You have to do this several times for both witches before they decide to get tough and combine to become...Twinrova!

Now things get interesting. Twinrova is a combination of both witches. One of her hands will shoot fire, and the other will shoot ice. Keep a target lock on her at all times, and keep the Mirror Shield raised. Watch her carefully, and take note on which hand shoots fire and which shoots ice. Let's say she shoots fire first. The Mirror Shield will absorb the energy and it will start blinking. She will probably shoot fire the next time too. The shield will blink faster. Now, here's where it could get tricky. Sometimes, she will shoot ice the next time. If this hits your shield, it will stop blinking, and the energy stored will be lost. If she shoots ice, jump to the side to get clear of it. Watch her hands, and keep jumping out of the way until she shoots fire again. After 3 or 4 hits of one kind of energy (either fire or ice), the shield will spray out energy and you can angle it to hit her. She will fall onto one of the small platforms. Run over there and jump onto the platform (DO NOT use the jump attack to get across to there). If you want, you can switch back to the Giant's Knife at this point. Hit her as many times as you can with the sword. When she recovers, jump back onto the big platform and get a lock on her again. Repeat the process, collecting several hits of ice and avoiding the fire attacks. After a few times doing this and hitting her with the sword, Twinrova is defeated.

After you defeat Twinrova, you meet the Spirit Sage, Nabooru. Nabooru gives you the Spirit Medalion, and tells you that your last task will be to defeat Ganondorf himself. She also tells you that someone is waiting to see you in the Temple of Time....

Go to the Temple of Time (using the Prelude of Light, if you are in a hurry). You will find Sheik waiting there for you. Remember that comment Impa had about finding Zelda? Well, you just did. Yes, Sheik is actually the Princess of Destiny in disguise; I knew it from nearly the beginning, but some have doubted it until the end....

Zelda gives you the Light Arrow and is promptly captured by Ganondorf. So...go and rescue her. The Sages build a bridge to Ganon's Castle, so you can go inside. You have to beat six 'mini-temples' (representing each of the six Sages and Medalions) before you meet up with the King of Evil himself. So, do it. When you have access to Ganondorf, make sure that you have some bottles with fairies or potions in them to refuel during the battle. I've found that two pink fairies and two ultimate potions are the best combination. To defeat Ganondorf, King of Evil, you will need: the Light Arrow (given to you by Zelda), a full Magic Meter (preferrably the long one), and the Master Sword. I also recommend that you have either the 40 or 50 arrow quiver (you get the 40 arrow one at the Shooting Gallery and the 50 arrow one when you score 1500 points at horseback archery). I say this because you use the Light Arrows a lot in this battle. It's also a good idea to equip the Mirror Shield. Although it won't bounce the attacks back, it will protect you from them.

After you find Ganondorf playing the organ, immediately run to one of the corners of the room. Ganondorf will hover above the opposite corner. He will throw energy balls at you. You can hold up the Mirror Shield to protect yourself, or you can swipe them back at him with your Master Sword. You MUST have the Master Sword equipped to do this; the Giant's Knife does not work. When you bounce the ball back at Ganon, Ganon will just bounce it back to you. Just do this several times until it hits him. Now, quickly shoot him with a Light Arrow. If you hit him in time, he will fall onto the center platform. Jump over to him and hit him as many times as you can with your sword (it's okay to use the Giant's Knife at this point, as long as you remember to switch it back before the next 'tennis match'). When he gets up, jump back into the corner, and play tennis with him again. Repeat the process as I have stated above until he starts to make a big dark ball to throw at you. While he is making this, you can shoot him with the Light Arrow and he'll fall to where you can hit him with a sword. I have never gotten hit by one of these big dark things, so I don't know if you can deflect it or what. Just don't get hit by one. Once you've repeated the process enough times, he screams and appears to be defeated.

Now Zelda is free, but the castle is starting to collapse around you. Follow Zelda down through the caste. She will make the bars on the doors disappear. As long as you play it safe (don't fall off of the stairs) you will have plenty of time. You meet a couple of villains along the way. In one room, Zelda is imprisoned in a ring of fire, and you have to fight two of those skeletons with armor. Just use the Giant's Knife and Z-targetting; they're not all that hard to defeat. Along a hallway near the end, a ReDead will be lurking to the side. I've tried just walking past him or running up and hitting him with a sword, but he always grabs me. Use the Hookshot to stun him, then just run on past him to where Zelda is waiting at the barred door. If you are low on magic power for some reason, you might want to kill the ReDead (it always leaves a big magic jar behind).

Once you are outside the castle, it collapses. You may think it is over, but it isn't. DO NOT SAVE YOUR GAME AND QUIT AT THIS POINT. If you do, you have to go through defeating Ganondorf and running through the collapsing castle all over again. Anyway, you hear a noise, and when you go to investigate, you find a huge, mutated Ganon monster. This is that absolute last enemy that you have to face, but he's more difficult than the old Ganondorf. Navi will help you this time (she feels guilty about deserting you in the last battle :-), so use Z-targetting. However, before you can start fighting, he kicks your Master Sword out to where Zelda is, beyond an un-crossable wall of fire. Great.

Equip you Giant's Knife, get out your Light Arrows and Hookshot, and get to work. Here's how it works: you hurt Ganon by hitting him in the face, then you go around and hit him in the tail. Repeat this. A lot of times. That's basically the secret to defeating Ganon. Yes, it is difficult, simply because it takes a lot of patience (this guy is tough). There are several ways to hit him in the face. The Light Arrow is the best, if you have arrows and magic to spare, since it stuns him for a much longer time than other weapons. However, if you are low on arrows or magic power, just use the Deku Nuts or Hookshot. Both of these will make him shake his head, stunning him for a short time. If you use either the Deku Nuts or Hookshot to stun Ganon, you must quickly go around to his tail and hurt him. If you use the Light Arrow on the head, you will have enough time to hit the tail with the sword or Megaton Hammer, but if you stun him with the Hookshot, you will probably have to use a distance weapon on his tail.

After you persist long enough, Ganon will collapse, and the fire wall will come down. Zelda will prompt you to come and get the Master Sword, which is stuck in the ground beside her. Go and get it, then run back toward Ganon. You will not reach him before he gets back up again (the fire wall comes up again as well). Now, start stunning him and hitting his tail, just as you did before. Eventually, he will collapse again. Zelda will use her power of light to keep him down, and you have to strike the final blow with the Master Sword. Target his head and give him a good stab or jump attack, just to make it flashy. Ganon will writhe in pain, and the Sages will trap him. The battle is over. Link is sent back to his own time (to regain his lost childhood) and Hyrule is finally safe.

If you think this sounds complicated, don't worry. Be patient; take your time. You can block most of Ganon's blows with either the Hylian or the Mirror Shield. If you run out of magic or arrows, more can be found in the ruined pillars around the battle area. Run behind one of them, so that Ganon is on the opposite side from you, and he will knock the pillar down with his weapon. The pillars yield magic jars, arrows, bombs, or pink fairies (have a bottle or two ready for them). But if you still run out of magic or arrows, don't give up. If all else fails, use the Hookshot. I have beat Ganon using nothing but the Hookshot and (for the final blow) the Master Sword. The Light Arrows work well if you have them, but you don't need them! Well, happy battling!

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