The first dungeon boss you fight against is the Parasitic Armored Arachnid: Gohma, and, yes, all bosses in Ocarina of Time has a badass One Piece esque epithet behind their name. And while the CGI model is admittedly a bit blocky and doesn't really offer a whole ton of detail beyond telling us that this is a bizarre giant spider-like creature with a giant eyeball, the official artwork for Gohma shows off just what the designers had in mind, and, hoo boy, comparing it to "four-legged spider, but with a giant eyeball" traditional 2D Gohma, they really went all the way in making a particularly badass looking creature, yeah? Those weird-looking massive feet, the giant crab-claws pointing up from above Gohma's eyeball, that disturbingly umbilical cord like tail that the Gohma uses to suck nutrition like the parasite it is...
Because, well, despite towering over Link, Gohma is a parasite. The very first dungeon Link goes into is the Deku Tree, a giant, ancient tree with a face and the guardian of the Kokiri Forest that Link and his Kokiri friends (think hobbit-elves) live in. And Ganondorf has sent this massive bug monster to basically kill the tree, leeching off its life-force and actually being successful in killing the Deku Tree even after Link killed the Gohma. As far as being an actual boss, the Gohma itself is pretty simple -- it's a straight-up brawl, with the Gohma sometimes summoning Gohma Larva from those egg sacs in her... armpits, I guess. And, in typical Zelda fashion, the big eye is the weakness. Of course it is. Mechanically, she's not the most special boss out there, but I do really love how we start off Ocarina of Time with a huge bang.
Sharp and Flat are a pair of Poes that guard a shrine in the Kakariko Graveyard, and are what's known as an "overworld boss", "overworld mini-boss", or something along those lines. They have unique models, appear at the end of a mini-quest storyline, and are slightly tougher than the regular Poes in the area. They're pretty fun looking Poe variants with obvious Mario mustaches and are each holding a music conductor's baton. Considering a huge part of Ocarina of Time is thematically tied to music, it's pretty fitting that we get a couple of bosses themed after music itself.
See, the story is that Sharp and Flat are actually composers for the royal family who were killed by the evil Ganondorf prior to the events of Ocarina of Time for refusing to give up the secrets of the Ocarina of Time, and they spend their afterlife guarding one of the musical songs that could be used with the Ocarina of Time -- the Sun's Song. After fighting Link and getting their asses kicked, they realize that, oh dear, Link's a friend all along! Again, it's always pretty neat to have bosses that are just stronger variations of a regular enemy you see in the overworld, something that I'm a huge fan of.
The second dungeon that Link goes to is the Dodongo Cave, a lava-themed dungeon, as young Link goes around collecting the three spiritual stones. Infernal Dinosaur: King Dodongo is the boss of the many Dodongo that has been rampaging around the volcano, who has forced the Goron tribe out of their home. And... and the King Dodongo is basically a nice love-letter to the older Dodongo enemies from the 2D games, even if it doesn't really have much in common in design other than being vaguely based on a ceratopsian dinosaur. It's not the most complex or unique creature design out there, just being a four-legged dinosaur with spikes and tusks all over, but the fight against him is certainly pretty memorable due to the location -- King Dodongo is able to roll around, armadillo style, and chase Link around a closed room with a lava pool in the middle, and the way that Link can defeat the King Dodongo is by throwing bombs into his mouth, but he requires a lot more than a regular old Dodongo to be rendered vulnerable. Oh, and it also breathes fire, because of course it does. It burns up in the lava pool next to it after you kill it, which is pretty neat. Again, not the most super-impressive boss out there, but it definitely works in both the theme of the dungeon, and as a prelude for bigger monsters to come.
Miniboss time! The third dungeon as young Link is Jabu-Jabu's Belly, a water-themed dungeon, and the miniboss this time around is another "super" version of a regular enemy, and Big Octo here is the bigger brother of the common Octorok, but instead of just being a squid, this dude is a large combination of an octopus and a snail/hermit crab or something, crawling around on tentacles as it fights Link. A homage to the original 2D Octoroks, which do crawl on land, perhaps? I remembered the boss fight against him to be pretty frustrating, because the Big Octo is deceptively fast and charges around the very cramped circular room that Link fights him in, and you have to take advantage of the split second that Big Octo changes direction to strike the weak spot on his back.
The last boss fight as Young Link takes place in the dungeon "Inside Lord Jabu-Jabu's Belly", and, like the Deku Tree, Link has to go around the body of a giant god-whale and cure the infection that is hurting Jabu-Jabu, in order to save both it and the Zora race of fish-people. After ripping apart the little jellyfish (Bari) minions and the parasitic tentacles all over Jabu-Jabu's belly, young Link comes face to face with the Bio-Electric Anemone: Barinade...
And honestly, while Barinade does have some parts that kinda resemble anemones, particularly the lower parts, it's less of an anemone and more of a cluster of jellyfishes and random coral monsters and general tumour-like blobby flesh attached to it. Those red, veiny tentacles pierce Jabu-Jabu's bodies and are arranged in other 'rooms' that block Link's passage, those purple tentacles with weird radar-dish-flower thing, I think, will zap Link with electricity, and Barinade's central body is protected with a layer of Baris like an armour. Eventually Link kills all the Baris and severs the tentacles connecting Barinade to the host body, causing it to spin around as this huge, gross tumour blob, because... hey, guess what, Barinade's the first boss to have multiple phases!
It's a boss fight similar to a bunch of older 2D bosses like Arrghus (who also shows up in 3D games eventually), and, honestly, I do appreciate that like the Gohma, Barinade isn't just a straight up "giant jellyfish" but more of a horrifying abomination of nature, a mass of fleshy coral bits all arranged together.
After Link collects the three spiritual stones... surprise surprise, the plot moves forwards, and Link gets tricked, and ends up being forced into a coma for seven years, starting off the second part of the game where Adult Link has to go and wander around the future (present?) where Ganondorf has won, obtained the Triforce of Power and taken over Hyrule, basically decimating Hyrule and turning so much of the areas young Link has adventured through in the first half of the game into pretty horrifying versions of what they used to be. And Link has to go to similar areas that he went to as a child, going deeper into a different forest, lava and water-themed dungeon. And the first dungeon Link goes to is the Forest Temple, which both has regular forest-themed enemies, but also a lot of ghosts!
And here are the Poe Sisters: Joelle, Beth, Amy and Meg, a quartet of Poe ladies that serve as the minibosses of the Forest Temple, each holding a key Link needs to access the final part of the Forest Temple. Joelle, Beth and Amy aren't too different from regular Poes, just looking a lot simpler body-wise, but has different eyes and hairdos. And, of course, they carry torches instead of lanterns. It's pretty interesting that they went through all the trouble to program in completely different-looking models. I absolutely love how the fight against them involves the Poes moving from picture to picture, and Link has to figure out that he has to burn the pictures and solve puzzles to fight them.
While the first three aren't much more threatening than regular Poes, and are just a pain to get to appear, Meg is far more powerful, and you know she's more powerful because instead of the two glowing eyes in a yawning shadowy hood, she wears this creepy skull-mask with three gems and a grinning skull-teeth. Pretty neat design, even if the boss fight against her isn't the most creative -- she just summons fake copies of herself.
The final boss of the Forest Temple is the Evil Spirit from Beyond: Phantom Ganon, which is basically a ghostly copy of Ganondorf riding a horse. It's an interesting way to get Link to fight Ganondorf outside of a cutscene without cheapening Ganondorf's power or to make it feel like Link didn't actually win. The idea of a dark knight riding on a shadowy horse is pretty cool, but Phantom Ganon is fought in a room with multiple paintings, and it's pretty cool that Phantom Ganon basically continues to charge in and out of the paintings, and it's a fun bit of using the actual 3D environment to look around, frantically looking for which of the paintings has a rider charging out of it.
Like Barinade, Phantom Ganon has multiple phases, and his second phase has him ditch the horse and just float around as an evil ghostly sorcerer, launching lightning bolts and engaging in some spell ping-pong where he and Link has to deflect balls of energy at each other -- a tried and true Legend of Zelda boss fight trope. Not the most creative boss fight in this game, but you must remember that Ocarina of Time is kind of groundbreaking, and it tries to take a lot of the more obvious tropes and present it in an all-new packaging.
Flare Dancer is the miniboss of the next dungeon, the Fire Temple, located deeper in the Death Mountain, and... and she's basically a classic "Fire Elemental" type of enemy. Except the simple addition of giving her a psychotic dance-battler theme changes her from being a cool-but-we've-seen-this-before enemy into something a bit more unique. She's got blades for legs and arms!
Interestingly, after damaging her a bit with either bombs or the hookshot, turns out that the Flare Dancer's true form is the chestplate... which will sprout out comically tiny limbs and run around and find a place in the room to reform into her combat form. That is absolutely hilarious, and caught me completely off-guard the first time I beat it. Look at that chest-plate, there's a grinning face etched there. That's the Dancer's true face! That's honestly pretty fun, and if not for the existence of Dead Hand below, I'd definitely call Flare Dancer my favourite miniboss ever.
And the boss in the Fire Temple is a motherfucking dragon, the Subterranean Lava Dragon: Volvagia. Which straight-up killed your Goron chieftain ally shortly before you arrive, and is apparently behind all of the volcano being about to erupt and whatnot. See what I mean about how we get an escalation between the pre-timeskip and post-timeskip bosses? You go from a plain old lava-dwelling dinosaur to a fire-breathing dragon with a mane of flame and a body of rocky lava. Volvagia was apparently the goddamn devil itself to the Goron race, spoken in hushed whispers, until it was revived by Ganondorf and unleashed to scare the Gorons into submission.
And while it's certainly not the classic sort of European dinosaur-lizard-with-bat-wings dragon, I do love just how Volvagia's essentially a neat blend of the Western and Eastern type of dragons, with its long, serpentine body floating in the air with thin, gangly reptile limbs borrowing from Eastern dragons, while the huge association to flame and the horned devil-lizard head definitely taking more from Western dragons.The fight against Volvagia isn't what you expect, either, starting off as what's essentially a whack-a-mole game as Volvagia worms in and out of multiple holes on the platform Link fights him in, while Link has to use the Megaton Hammer to smash the shit out of Volvagia. The second phase is a bit more of what you expect, with more direct combat, fire-breathing and a collapsing volcano, but Volvagia himself still worms in and out of the various holes in the chamber, and I do like that the designers implied that Volvagia has adapted into living in the subterranean volcano, which is neat. Killing Volvagia leads to a pretty badass cutscene where Volvagia himself burns up, leaving only the black stone-like skull piece clattering onto the ground. Volvagia was so popular that he would be reimagined in the far more recent Hyrule Warriors game as a more standard European dragon able to transform into a humanoid form called Volga as one of the playable bad guys. Considering that he's a mere dungeon boss while most of the other playable bad guys are straight-up the respective main villains of their debut games, yay for Volvagia!
Dark Link, visually... is just Link, cast entirely in shadow, with glowing red eyes. Which is pretty cool, inherently, being an evil demonic clone and whatnot... but also kind of an obvious one. Which is why the presentation of the Dark Link fight in the Water Temple is perhaps easily one of the best boss fight intros in the entire game, and I'd argue the entire franchise.
After going through puzzles in this underwater temple, Link goes into this area that's so peaceful, just this wide expanse of clear, mirror-like water with a single tree in the middle of it. Very zen, very peaceful... and then Link's very vivid shadow suddenly materializes into Dark Link, rising up and fighting him. And it's... it's a simple fight, other than the fact that Dark Link basically can do whatever Link himself can (the trick is to pull out your weirder weapons like the hammer)... and after you defeat Dark Link, turns out the massive mirror-lake and the tree doesn't even exist, and Link has been just in a random small room. Some really neat mind-fuckery is going on, and it's implied that Link might've actually just done the whole thing in his own mind... or maybe it's just magic that teleported Link into another realm. Either way, a pretty awesome boss fight.
The final boss of the Water Temple (a.k.a. THAT ONE LEVEL for most players) is Giant Aquatic Amoeba: Morpha. And... and just like Volvagia, Morpha's gone and killed another one of your allies, Princess Ruto of the Zora... and it's very interesting that this thing is basically just the entire room. Morpha is fought in a room filled with water and only a couple of platforms to jump around, and it basically manifests giant tendrils to fight Link with, because, well, it's a giant amoeba! Its original Japanese name translates more to "Aquatic Cell Nucleus", but the concept is similar enough -- Morpha's controlled by a central red core that moves around in the tentacles, and in-between trying not to fall into the water, avoiding the lashing tentacles and jumping from dry ground to dry ground, Link has to hookshot the nucleus out of Morpha's body and slash the vulnerable part. Morpha's fight is actually pretty interesting, even if visually it's not the most exciting of bosses.
And we get this motherfucker. Dead Hand serves as both boss of a mini-dungeon, the Bottom of the Well, as well as the mini-boss of the Shadow Temple. And... well, Bottom of the Well is perhaps my favourite part of Ocarina of Time, being such an atmospherically creepy level that's such a stark contrast with the rest of the game. From when you enter the Well, to the foreshadowing from back when young Link was wandering around Kakariko, the Well's pretty atmospheric... and after going through the spooky shit in the well, Link comes into a room where the only things in the room are four slender white arms reaching towards the ceiling.
And when Link approaches one of the hands? Dead Hand's true body appears, and it's this... what is this? It's a hunch-backed deformed zombie that sort of goops around, with its neck contorted and extended, its skull-face looking particularly horrifying, its stomach bloated and its arms ending in bloody nubs. The subtle implication that Dead Hand is one of those "amalgamation of corpses" monster considering the fact that the Well's implied to be a torture chamber or something... I dunno, Dead Hand isn't super scary on its own, but when playing through Ocarina of Time and going through the otherwise cheery game (even other undead enemies like the Stalfos are more goofy than spooky), the sudden switch into the atmospheric, creepy music and surroundings of the Bottom of the Well, culminating in the fight against Dead Hand, is just super well-done. And the fact that he attacks by summoning a fuck-ton of long, tentacle like hands while the main body tries to chomp down on Link... and one of the only ways to guarantee damage on Dead End is to allow Dead End to grab onto Link just adds another layer of creepy horror.
The final boss of the Shadow Temple, itself a dungeon themed after a mausoleum with spooky undead enemies, Link ends up fighting the Phantom Shadow Beast: Bongo Bongo. And why is he called Bongo Bongo? Well, after going through a bizarre "boat of the dead" sequence, Link arrives in what's essentially a giant drum, and two shadowy, demonic hands will appear and basically play on the drum. Bongo Bongo is foreshadowed a couple of times in the game as a particularly evil demonic spirit sealed by one of your allies, Impa, deep beneath the well, and Bongo Bongo would be unleashed and make its nest in the Shadow Temple.
Bongo Bongo is also mostly invisible, as seen in the first cutscene when it breaks out of the well. After beating up the first Dead Hand, Link acquires the Lens of Truth, and when fighting Bongo Bongo, the way to reveal Bongo Bongo's true form is with said Lens of Truth. And hoo boy, Bongo Bongo's real form is a woozy. It's the upside-down torso of a humanoid body hanging down from the ceiling, with disembodied hands that seems to have been sliced off at the wrist, and that neck terminates in a flower-like explosion with tendrils and a glowing core. Some of the fans speculate that Bongo Bongo used to be a living thief who tried to steal the Lens of Truth or something, and ended up being executed, with his hands being cut off and his head being decapitated, which... yeah, maybe, why not?
He's also basically kind of like an enhanced version of the Wallmasters, albeit with an actual body, but he is far, far deadlier. During my first playthrough of Ocarina of Time, Bongo Bongo was the only boss that I died to more than once. Bongo Bongo just plays the stage like a drum while singing some bizarre, cursed tune, and that basically makes a lot of your weaponry useless since you can't even aim properly. Link has to wait until both the hands are close enough, at which point Link has to stun it at the same time, and then quickly activate the Lens of Truth to make the body visible and then slash-slash-slash at the exposed eye. Definitely one of the most memorable bosses in Ocarina of Time for sure.
Iron Knuckle is the miniboss in the Spirit Temple, and would've otherwise been a cool but otherwise boring giant knight enemy. Like, yeah, the design of the armour is cool, especially with the limited graphics of the engine, but it's just a generic knight enemy, y'know? It's deadly as shit, and has a second phase where chunks of its armour falls off and it becomes faster and more savage... but the true horror is when one of your allies, Nabooru, ends up being forced into one of these -- and we learn that the Iron Knuckle are basically animated by the magics of the evil witches Twinrova, and you, Link, has been forced to kill your own ally! Oh no!
And we finally go into the final dungeon boss of the game, the Sorceress Sisters: Twinrova. Or their individual forms, Koume and Kotake. Design-wise, they're... they're neat, kooky old gremlin-lady witches with hairs of fire and ice, riding around on brooms. And then in their second phase, they fuse together into a sexy lady dual-wielding the brooms as staves, shooting flame and ice all over the room. But I really do like the fact that Twinrova is actually built up as a spiteful enemy you are happy to put down. These ladies aren't just random beasts like Volvagia or King Dodongo or Morpha. They are unambiguously intelligent, and also evil, and they killed one of your friends! And they are revealed to be mentors and adoptive mothers to Ganondorf.
The Spirit Temple itself is also unique, being a dungeon that Link has to clear in succession as a child and as an adult, jumping between the two timelines to clear different parts of it, working with the Nabooru of the two time periods, which means you get to see Twinrova corrupt the temple. Overall, while visually she isn't the most exciting boss monster out there, she is notable for being one of the few enemies in the game to actually straight-up be a sentient set of characters, making the fight against them far, far more epic than it would've otherwise been.
And so begin the boss fight against Ganondorf, as the sorcerer-king flies around looking pretty damn majestic. And sure, his appearance is just a cool-looking anime dude, but man, the buildup to Ganondorf in Ocarina of Time is pretty well-done. The boss fight initially starts off as a harder repeat of the Phantom Ganon boss fight, but Ganondorf will also abuse the fact that he can fly and Link cannot, and destroy the stage as the battle goes on. And Ganondorf shows off more and more lightning attacks, a ground-pound attack... but eventually, Link beats Ganondorf with the Arrow of Light, granted to him by Zelda's own Triforce powers... and Ganondorf falls down to the ground, apparently dead, and Link has to escape the collapsing castle...
...except that's not the case, of course. Ganondorf's corpse mutates into a hideous, demonic form, a pretty awesome adaptation of Ganon's original 2D design of "giant pig-man sorcerer". And in an understated but awesome bit, where every other boss has a title behind it as the game shows it off, Ganon's final form? It's just Ganon. No Great Emperor of Doomy Destruction: Ganon. No Ultimate Emperor of Eternal Evil: Ganon. No Calamity Beast of Hyrule's Blight: Ganon. Just simply Ganon.
And one thing that I love? Ganon's design is completely in shadow. You get to see his silhouette, his glowing eyes and his blades, but you don't actually see what he really looks like most of the time. His true form is only coloured when the lightning in the background flashes and lights up his true form, which is a pretty badass adaptation of his original pig-man model. The pig-orc tusks are moved to the sides of his head, which is now a far less piggy (the pig nose's there) and far more beastly and demonic skull-face. His long, red flowing hair, his tattered Ganondorf armour, his massive muscles, his pig hooves... they all look pretty damn badass, and honestly, it's an amazing, amazing attempt at keeping as much of the original essence of Pigman Ganon and still making him look like a monstrous version of Ocarina of Time's humanoid Ganondorf. And the fight against Ganon is honestly more about survival and taking cheap shots, because for the first part of the fight, Ganon knocks away Link's Master Sword and locks Zelda's magic out of the ring of fire that he duels Link in, and Link basically has to use his other items to try and strike at Ganon's weak part -- the tail -- which is easier said than done. The battle is long, hard, you'll have to keep dodging him until you deal enough damage for Zelda to chip in and for Link to eventually recover the Master Sword and knock him down. And... and honestly, it's a pretty damn epic conclusion to an epic game that wouldn't have been possible if Ganon himself isn't such a cool looking badass monster. Easily one of the best-executed final boss fights in The Legend of Zelda, honestly, the perfect combination of atmosphere, buildup and scariness without going overboard.
