Your mileage may vary on what the best Legend of Zelda game is. Some say Breath of the Wild for the sheer scope and the pretty graphics. Some say A Link to the Past, for being such a revolutionary leap for the genre and packing so much content into a Super Nintendo cartridge. Some say Majora's Mask, for being such a great sequel and such a well-polished acid trip with a unique gimmick. Some say Wind Waker for daring to actually take a leap with risks and not just be content at remaking the same old setting.But one thing that everyone agrees is a very, very solid game, if not the best game of its time, was The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, marking the very first time that Zelda jumped from 2D to 3D, and ended up with not just fighty-fight gimmicks, but also had the now-granted lock-on mechanic, and also had a story that was pretty damn solid throughout the entirety of the game and not just given in small chunks of cutscenes. It's primitive nowadays considering how much other RPG's (and the Legend of Zelda franchise in general) draw and improve on the formula that Ocarina of Time did, and especially since the blocky graphics are kind of outdated... but man, if you get past that, Ocarina of Time does deserve its reputation as one of the more revolutionary games in the franchise, and, hey, as is our focus in these "reviewing monsters" series, has its fair share of cool fantasy video-game monsters.
So the first ones we'll talk about are the very first enemies that Link faces as a kid, and before he has all of his fancy equipment, which are the Deku Baba, which... are just giant venus flytrap style plants in the same vein as Mario's Piranha Plants. Very simple as far as these things go, but it's always just such a bizarre treat to see what's otherwise a pretty harmless real-life organism like a flower be translated into a dangerous fantasy monster. Or, well, relatively dangerous.
The Withered Deku Baba, as its name implies, is 'withered' and weak, standing ram-rod straight and just sort of clatter around like noisy little nuisances as opposed to actually being threats. I'm 90% sure they can't actually hurt Link unless he runs straight into them. The actual Deku Baba is actually proactive, behaving sort of like a snake rooted to a spot that tries to chomp down on Link when he passes by, and even hide in the grass by retracting its massive purple fang-head. Which I never really thought about, but man, what a weird feature to give to a plant monster. I guess they just act kinda like Bobbit Worms or something? The Withered version will drop "Deku Sticks" that Link can harvest as fragile spear-club things, while the regular Baba will drop seeds that Link weaponizes as slingshot ammunition. Ocarina of Time doesn't have a complex crafting system like subsequent games, but it does make all of the monster drops feel thematic and count into making a cohesive world, y'know?
This is the Deku Baba's first appearance in the Legend of Zelda franchise, and the freaking wacky hidden trap-flowers will continue making appearances in basically every second Legend of Zelda game in the future. Not all the OOT monsters have official artwork, but I'll be including them for those that have. The more powerful variant, the Big Deku Baba, shows up in the 'future' timeline segments of the game (spoiler-slash-surprise, Ocarina of Time features time travel), and while a simple resizing affair, is a neat way to show how apparently even the mundane Deku Babas have grown wild, out of control, and actually basically invade the previously happy Kokiri Village.
These next set of monsters are a wee bit weird, because the models double as both NPC's and as part of the soulless, "kill-em-all-without-morality-issues" enemies that you face throughout your journey through Ocarina of Time. Doesn't help that Majora's Mask, the sequel to this, actually gives you the ability to transform into a Deku Scrub and features an entire society and town featuring the race, meaning that moreso than any other enemy in this game, the Scrubs (this was a time before 'scrub' is a derogative gamer term) are straight-up sentient beings that Link sort of murder en masse throughout his journey.
The Deku Scrubs (originally called the "Deku Nuts" in Japanese) are... pretty interesting creature. I can sort of easily describe this as sort of a cross between the Pokemons Oddish and Bellsprout, and like the Deku Baba, they spend most of their time hiding underground because that's what the designers really want to highlight about plants, I guess? The Scrubs are a lot more distinctive, though, with their leaf 'hat' being pretty visible. Mostly it's a matter of actually hitting the Scrubs than actually spotting them. Unlike the dumb Babas, the Scrubs are smart enough to hide into subterranean safety if Link gets close, so Link has to use his shield to bounce back the giant wooden seeds that the Scrubs shoot out towards him... but once Link gets ranged weapons like the boomerang and the bow, they get significantly easier to defeat.
Like what I said in my Pokemon reviews, I really do think that as much as the design trope is overused in Japanese-originated mascots, a little huge head with big eyes, stubby limbs and little accessories just really work at making a good silhouette, y'know? It's no surprise that the Deku Scrubs get such a highly increased role in Majora's Mask. Hell, a bunch of friendly Deku Scrubs even feature in some parts and side-quests in this game's foresty areas.
Two different variations are also found in the game. With an all-new model, the Business Scrub have ganglier limbs, a less hood-like hat and a facial expression that just looks kinda-sorta nervous and pathetic... honestly, combined with the little sound effect jingle that plays whenever you meet one of these, as well as the pose of the hands, the Business Scrubs... well, basically behaves like a regular Deku Scru in battle... until you defeat them. Then they will miserably beg for mercy and then try and sell their merchandise to you, essentially serving as one-time merchants. A pretty fun little gimmick... more monsters in these fantasy video games should try and give up and try and hawk their goods at you!
The Mad Scrub is an autumn-themed recolored version of the Deku Scrub, and, like the Big Deku Baba, mainly shows up in the future timeline sequence. It's sort of implied from the name that the "Mad" Scrub have truly gone insane, and unlike their two green brethren, the Mad Scrubs will just machinegun their seed at Link without even trying to hide, making them susceptible to Link just charging up and slicing them to death.
Overall, though, the Scrubs start a glorious tradition of the 3D Zelda games really loving to make their own weird plant-men races, something I definitely approve of!
I'm going to lump these three together because they're essentially the same monster, just resized. From left to right, we have the Skullwalltula, Skulltula and the Big Skulltula. They're an interestingly simple way to take a simple monster trope -- the giant spider -- and make them distinctive. And, sure, turning the spider's abdomen into a grinning, winking human skull is pretty damn interesting! A lot of real-life arthropods do actually have markings resembling larger creatures (including, yes, the Noble False Widow, or the "Death's Head Spider" who has skull-esque markings on their abdomens) but since this is fantasy-land, it appears that the Skulltulas have just straight-up grown osseus carapaces aroud their abdomens. And, well, at least for the Skulltula and the Big Skulltula, you have to hit their weak spot -- their underside -- meaning that this is basically a 3D Koopa. But more spidery. Thank god they conveniently just hang down on a string and rotate around... they don't actually scuttle around on their legs until, like, Twilight Princess or something. Like most early-game enemies, once you get a specific item (the Hookshot in this case), you can bypass the whole "wait for it to expose its weak point" and just murder it in one shot.
In Japanese, these are named "Staltula" to fit with the "Stal" naming scheme of other undead monsters in the game, but the "skull" prefix does admittedly flow a lot better.
The Gold Skulltula have a decidedly more interesting model, with Spiny-Orb-Weaver-esque spikes, and, well, a golden coloration. There are a hundred Gold Skulltulas hidden across both versions of Hyrule and these are, I think, the first (or one of the first) collection quests in a Legend of Zelda game before they go overboard with these sidequests. They are less enemies and more collectibles, but Link still has to 'kill' them to have them count towards his total. I think there's a story associated with these, like, a family that was cursed to turn into Skulltulas that Link has to save by killing the 100 Golden Skulltulas or something?
The Gohma Larva is sort of a very loose adaptation of the original Gohma enemies from the 2D games, which are like one-eyed cartoon spiders. While still ostensibly arthropods, I really do like that the Gohma Larva in this game look more like... well, weird mutant creatures. I'm not even sure how to describe them. Giant spheres with one eye, chicken legs, and... and weird crystalline stingers? They're a neat reimagination of the classic one-eyed spider enemies, albeit looking more like something out of Star Wars than a regular spider or insectoid enemy, but I do like that the Gohma Larva isn't just readily equated into a real-life arthropod.
The Gohma Larva only show up in the very first dungeon of the game, the Deku Tree, first showing up individually (and hatching from eggs) until the true menace, the mother Gohma (we'll cover bosses and minibosses in a separate article), shows up as the big bad boss of the dungeon. Of course, since this is Legend of Zelda, the mother Gohma summons a bunch of these weird chicken-bugs as minions during her boss fight. Honestly, at this point in time, a big bug enemy that lays eggs that hatch into miniature bugs have sort of been done to death, but I do appreciate how fucking weird OOT's Gohma Larvae look.
Man oh man, fuck the Peahats. I simultaneously adore them as enemies, and also hate them because I'm pretty sure I died more times to Peahats alone than with any other enemy or boss fights in Ocarina of Time. The Peahats in the 2D games were honestly a generic starter enemy, just helicopter flowers that float around screens in early areas.
Well, OOT's Peahats are still helicopter flowers, and they populate the largest area in the overworld, Hyrule Field. And in one of the coolest parts of their design, the Peahats are perhaps one of the nicest signs that the designers of Ocarina of Time really put in effort in designing the enemies. Being giant plant monsters, during the night, the Peahats are planted and rooted to the groud, leaving only the huge flower-leaf part visible and are content to shoot out the Peahat Larvas out, which are little helicopter buzzsaw drones, to chase down Link. Which is annoying, because the little larvas move fast and are hard to damage.
But in the day, plants are more active, right? So these giant Peahats (and I do mean giant, they're easily twice or three times Link's size) will just burst out of the ground, showing off their massive gourd-like body and having gigantic sword-like helicopter blades... and the Peahat can only be damaged by a weak spot that is constantly facing away from Link in the center of those helicopter blades. Honestly, as an enemy that's completely optional in the game and just something encoutered in Hyrule Field, it's impressive just how much thought they put into this one enemy that you encounter as you travel around, and can even just avoid -- a huge, huge fan of the Peahats and how dickish they actually are.
Speaking of the day/night cycle of the game, at night... zombie skeletons show up in Hyrule Field! The Stalchild (Stalbaby in the original Japanese) are extremely goofy looking, with that head looking more like... well, some weird animal-man like Disney's Goofy or something. I don't think it even has a lower jaw! I'm not sure if any race in Ocarina of Time actually corresponds to these Stalchildren, and I suppose Nintendo's just doing this so as not to traumatize the kids playing this game too much (gotta wait until Dead Hand shows up for that!).
Basically, the Stalchildren will just keep showing up and rattle and swarm and beat up Link and, like the Peahat, acts more of a 'hey, isn't it great if you had better equipment?' gear checks. As kind of an easter egg, if you kill enough Stalchildren, a giant one will emerge to fuck shit up, but other than its size, it's just like, got twice the HP or something.
You kinda need a bunch of mundane enemies, and the Guay are basically large-billed mean crows. They're just kind of assholes that peck Link in some areas, and... honestly, kind of boring. Like the Stalchildren, a Giant Guay will show up if you kill enough.
Like the Guay, the Keese are honestly "just bats". Like, sure, they're stylized and whatnot, but they're just angry D&D bats that show up in most dungeons, hide in the roof and dark shadows, and just swoop down and slam unprepared players and chip down their health. They're not dangerous, but unlike the Guay, at least the game does something interesting with them later on.
Because, well, later on you get into fire-themed and ice-themed dungeons, and Fire Keese and Ice Keese show up respectively, and they're... well, Keese with elements, respectively. Fire Keese deals fire damage, and is vulnerable to Link's ice arrows, and vice versa. The interesting thing, of course, is that if a regular Keese should fly through a torch, or if Link shoots them with a fire (or ice) arrow, the Keese will actually transform into its elemental version, showing that the Keese is actually far neater than "just a bat". They can actually mutate depending on what they're exposed to, which is pretty damn cool.
The Cuccoo are more of an easter egg NPC you can interact with more than anything. They're chickens! They're hilarious... but don't ever hit them with a sword. Continuing a tradition started in either ALTTP or Link's Awakening, they damn things are invulnerable, and hitting one with a sword will cause a swarm of angry, invincible Cuccoos to show up and pursue and attack Link and murder him to death unless you somehow have enough Matrix-style skills to avoid them and escape Kakariko Village.
This makes the Cuccoo, as always in Zelda games, the most powerful enemy in the game. Honestly, if Link had actually bothered to weaponize the damn chickens instead of relying on a magic sword in a mystic forest, Ganondorf would've been beaten looooong ago.
Another one from the 2D games are Legend of Zelda's unique take on ghostly enemies, which are the Poe, little pudgy cartoon ghosts with only eyes visible under the darkness covered by their hoods. Also, they carry lanterns. And the lanterns actually work to the gimmick of defeating them! Found in the graveyards at night, Link actually using the lock-on feature on the Poe would make them disappear... other than the lantern they are holding. For a game that focuses so much on locking on, the only way that Link can actually beat the Poes is actually not locking on and just charging in and slashing them while they're visible.
There's a bunch of variants as seen here, in addition to a couple of unique miniboss models. The two-horned Poes are sort of rare encounters in the adult timeline, but otherwise behave similarly to their child timeline counterparts. The one on the far left that's a lot more white are Big Poes, and there are ten of them that appear specifically as part of a side-quest. Basically, they show up when Link approaches their hiding spot and float away within a matter of seconds and pass through walls and stuff and Link has to shoot them with the bow fast enough to kill them, harvest their souls and sell them to the enigmatic Poe Collector, a pretty creepy motherfucker that looks like a boss fight himself. The Poe Collector will basically reward Link with money and an empty bottle while he harvests the souls of ghosts for him. Profit...?
Regardless, considering how charming the Poes are, how well-integrated they are to the fighting system while also being pretty simple, and how neatly distinct the designers managed to make the different variants despite them being palette swaps, the Poes are pretty neat enemies to fight for sure!
So one of the earlier quests that Child Link has to go through includes investigating the mystery of Kakariko Village's graveyard, and, what do you know, there's a whole underground chamber under these damn gravestones, populated by the Redeads (or ReDeads... I spent a long time thinking they were pronounced red-deads). And they're just sort of zombies, dessicated corpses with a burial mask. Or is that just a sunken, sallow mummified face? And in theory, this pixelated zombie man shouldn't be scary.
But they fucking kind of are. It's a combination of the fact that you jump straight from the cartoony monsters before the ReDead encounter straight to these uncannily creepy things, as well as the general music of the graveyard levels, as well as the unearthly shriek that these things make... but mostly, the creepiest things about the Redeads are the fact that they are deceptively dumb looking. The first time you meet them, the Redeads are just shambling aroud like B-movie zombies that go 'braiinsss'... but when Link comes close (and it's explicitly sound they react to) they suddenly go straight into World War Z zombie mode and run towards Link while screaming... before jumping onto Link's face andhump it try to rip his face off.
Again, pretty damn scary until Link gets the appropriate item to take them down -- the Sun's Song, in this case, which stuns the ReDeads themselves and allows Link to get a lot of good hits in. In perhaps the biggest case of badass decay ever in this game, once Link goes through the time-skip and you gain control of seven-years-later adult Link, you encounter a swarm of ReDead shambling around the ruins of Castle Town (implied to be the zombified forms of the merchants you meet as a kid!) and you just take them down as easily as Deku Babas.
The Wolfos (Zelda really loves the -fos suffix) is... kind of boring? He's just a gangle wolf-man with a hiariously goofy expression for what's probably supposed to be a scary enemy. Most of the time, we fight the gray version, and they're... like enemies that are significantly tougher and are just a straight-up "brawl till one of you dies" enemy, unlike the more puzzle-like or item-gated enemies. Maybe that's why I find them uninteresting? A snow-themed variant, the White Wolfos, appears in the mini-dungeon, the Ice Cavern.
Perhaps my favourite reimagination of a classic 2D enemy is the humble Octorok. While the Peahat, the Leever, the Tektite, the Keese and a lot of others are just basically the same enemies transplanted into 3D, the Octoroks are actually vastly changed. Sure, they're still traditional Japanese cartoon octopus that shoot rocks out of their siphons, but instead of wandering around the land, they now live in the water, popping out with those adorably sad-looking green eyes while launching rocks at Link. It's such a small change in habitat, but it honestly made the Octorok so much more natural-looking. Huge fan!
The Tektites are still essentially the same, as I mentioned before. Little weird nondescript bug enemies with a central body, a weirdly fleshy eyeball and four grasshopper esque legs. And they jump around! Two variants show up in Ocarina of Time, and I really do love how the game actually differentiates them based on habitat. The Blue Tektites populate areas nearby water, and jump around in areas aroud the Zora River and the water temple, whereas the Red Tektites hang aroud the volcanic Death Mountain. Not the most complex enemies, since all they do is bounce around and make it sometimes hard to hit them, but still, bug enemies are cool! The official artwork actually shows them to be more grasshopper-y, with additional little buggy mandibles. Pretty cool stuff, honestly.
The Beamos is perhaps one of the more iconic enemies from older games, being more traps and obstacles than actual creatures you have to overcome. The Beamos is reimagined from a Corinthian column into this... this bizarre, genuinely uncomfortable looking... thing. Look at it! What the fuck is that thing even supposed to be? Sure, it's still a mostly-invulnerable column with a cyclopean eyeball turret that shoots laser beams. That bit isn't changed. But instead of an almost-mechanical vibe that past Beamoses in 2D games has, OOT's Beamos look more like homunculi of sorts. Look at that uncomfortably human-looking giant nose and toothy lip on the bottom half, as well as those pudgy feet!
Pretty genuinely bizarre and honestly disturbing designs, and they actually go back to being a lot more mechanical (well, magical steampunk) in subsequent 3D games, but kudos to whoever made the Beamos look so memorably creepy in this game. The hint is that "Beamos doesn't like smoke"... which apparently means they get blown up by bombs. Okay. There are also waaaaay too many of these damn things in dungeons.
The Baby Dodongo are... honestly kind of weirdly disappointing if not accompanied by their larger cousins. They're just these weird little worm-like snake things with a huge triangular head, which look kinda boring. They don't show up a lot, mostly in the Dodongo's Cavern dungeon, and... they are actually explosive, and actually relevant in solving a specific puzzle where Link has to goad them to chase him and explode in a specific spot. Would've been really boring without his adult counterpart.
The official artwork makes it even more confusing, making the thing look more like an angry fish-headed worm more than anything.
Regular Dodongo goes from a lumpy ceratopsian dinosaur in the 2D games into this two-legged diant lizard-dragon thing, another pretty interesting reinvention. Subsequent games (even 2D ones!) would actually alternate pretty strongly on the original ceratopsian Dodongo and this two-legged giant komodo dragon. Thankfully, the game came with a manual that shows just how reptilian and dinosaurian the Dodongo is meant to look like.
In the lore of Ocarina of Time, the Dodongo have taken over the territory of Link's rock-people allies, the Gorons, and are the subject of the Dodongo's Cavern dungeon. They're pretty fun to fight, being especially challenging for Young Link. They breathe fire, they spin around to make sure Link doesn't strike its weak tail, and are also weak to bombs -- you can either make the Dodongo eat them, or just lob the bombs wantonly at the Dodongo. Apparently, despite the Dodongo being pretty damn vulnerable to bombs, the Gorons are able to make safe bomb-bags out of harvested Dodongo stomach. Oookay? I really do think that out of all of the models in Ocarina of Time, the Dodongo is perhaps the one that has aged the least well. Still a cool enemy to fight, though.
The Armos in this game is... interesting. So the original Armos in the 2D games are supposed to be walking, animated suits of armor, but in practice the sprites just sort of wobble and jump around. Come the translation to 3D, and apparently the Armos also do the same, just bouncing around like a giant, sentient chest piece. I do like just how weirdly in-humanoid this thing looks, just like someone carved a crude face onto a lumpy rock, and glued the horns and weapons in. Considering how golems are made in many fantasy settings, that might very well be the case. Armoses don't actually show up too many times, mostly just in the fire-themed dungeons, but they hide among statues that look like them, which is a nice little gimmick.
The Lizalfos make their debut in this game (unless I'm missing a 2D Lizalfos somewhere) and, well, they're humanoid and for the standards of this game's enemies, are pretty complex with a fair amount of moving parts. They are obviously supposed to represent like Lizardmen or whatever from D&D, and they're pretty simple. Just giant gecko-people with a sword and rudimentary clothing textures, just jumping and scuttling around. They're honestly pretty neat looking, honestly, and Ocarina of Time actually sparses Lizalfos encounters enough for them to feel like a neat mini-mini-boss.
It is really hilarious, though, how the official artwork of the Lizalfos made it out to be this badass, musclebound Lizardman warrior when the actual in-game model looks more like a hyperactive angry gecko.
The Shabom is an enemy specific to the dungeon Jabu Jabu's Belly, because, yes, a portion of the game takes place in the belly of a giant whale-god. The Shabom are admittedly minimal-effort, though, just bubble enemies that blow up if they get too close.
Ah, now we're talking. The Biri and the Bari are electrical floating jellyfishes, and associating the electrical element to jellyfishes is actually a pretty fun way to interpret the stinging venom of real-life jellyfishes. I also do like that we have two variants of them. The Biri look more like real-life jellyfishes, with floating, curtain-like tentacles and a pretty fun colourful bell; whereas the Bari look more... sci-fi-esque, with an almost Metroid-esque design, with fleshy tentacles tipped with barbs. Like their 2D counterparts, Baris will explode and split into multiple Biris upon dying. A pretty good reimagination of the original 2D Biri and Bari, honestly.
The Biri and the Bari are another one of those item-gated enemies, being almost invincible initially -- you can kill them with bombs, but with them floating around it's significantly harder than hitting a Beamos. But once you get the Boomerang, the Biri will fall apart very easily. Ocarina of Time actually does a pretty great job at having weaker versions of a dungeon's final boss basically be little enemies Link encounters earlier in the dungeon, with the boss of Jabu Jabu's Belly being a monstrous version of a Bari.
Oh, this one is cool. The Stinger is yet another enemy exclusive to Jabu Jabu's Belly and the Water Temple, and look like weird alien manta-ray creatures. The teal and orange coloration is especially striking, as are the four beady red eyes and the serrated fin-tips. They dive in and out of pools and alternate with floating around to try and ram into Link. While pretty simple enemies, again, I do appreciate that Ocarina of Time has enough themed variations to make each dungeon feel pretty unique.
The Tailpasaran is... a weird critter. Based on the 2D Moldorm ("Tail" in Japanese) enemies, the Tailpasaran look a lot more like a straight-up 3D-fication of a 2D enemy, just a bunch of circular spheres attached to a centipede-like head. Honestly, as much as OOT is admittedly primitive in its graphics, the Tailpasaran sort of stand out as looking particularly odd. They also only honestly show up once or twice in the Jabu Jabu dungeon, supposedly being like parasitic tapeworm enemies or something, and duck in and out of their 'nests' and zap Link.
The Parasitic Tentacle is more of an environmental fixture, just being a huge fleshy tentacle that Link has to destroy three of inside Jabu Jabu's Belly, and apparently connected to the main parasite body (the boss, Barinade)... but the game and Na'vi identifies the Parasitic Tentacle as an enemy monster. So... yeah. It's a thing.
The Skull Kid (Stal Kid in Japanese) is more of a mischievous nuisance than a straight-up enemy, apparently a race of fairy-like tricksters that live in the Lost Woods, an area where Link will get turned around and sent back to the entrance if he doesn't know which way to go. The Skull Kids are apparently Kokiri (or children) who got lost in the Lost Woods or something? They're mostly mischievous, although some help out by giving Child Link items or trinkets if you solve their little puzzles. However, apparently they only want to play with children, because showing up in the adult timeline as an adult, one of the Skull Kids you explicitly befriended by giving him a cute skull mask will attack adult Link, and unlike most other enemies... this one does not respawn. Yep, that's right. Adult Link just straight-up murdered someone he befriended as a kid.
Their original 3D model has them have black skin, duck bills and glowing red eyes, but probably because of international racism concerns, most subsequent remakes and reissues of Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask have given the Skull Kid a more scarecrow-inspired face.
Honestly, a pretty interesting little enemy that's simultaneously creepy and friendly... basically what the fair folk really should be. Skull Kid's easily one of the breakout characters in Ocarina of Time, becoming essentially the big bad of Majora's Mask and major antagonist/supporting-trickster-characters in subsequent games.
The Moblin and Club Moblin ("Bossblin" in Japanese) are giant bulldog-faced orcs that basically are a neat homage to another enemy from the 2D games. Instead of being comically blue and fat, though, these pig-men are muscular, tall, and actually look threatening other than their piggy, doggy faces. These are, of course, obviously orcs before World of Warcraft sort of changed the pop culture default image of orcs from "pig-men" to "green musclemen with a huge underbite and tusks". Zelda as a franchise has often gone back and forth from showing Moblin as being pig-men or bulldog-men. As a commenter pointed out, though, I missed the noses on these specific Moblin incarnations showing that they're, in fact, bulldogs.
Despite their impressive looking stature and their implied task of being sent by Ganondorf to guard the Sacred Grove post-timeskip, the Moblins are hilariously weak and Link would have far more problems with the Mad Scrubs earlier in the area than the Moblins.
From left to right, we have the Blue Bubble, Green Bubble, Red Bubble and the very rare White Bubble. Despite their names, the Bubbles are actually angry floating skulls found in the more... sinister and undead-themed dungeons in the game. Honestly, while simple, I do really like the visuals of a yakking skull with adorable wing-ears just flying aroud. And the three most common variants are on fire!
Best of all is how you fight them. After taking enough damage (you have to time your strikes to when the flame 'shield' activates and turns off), the flames go out and the poor skull just hops around on the ground desperately to run away from Link, and Link has to chase down and smash them for good, otherwise they regenerate into a floating Ghost Rider head again.
I can't believe it took us this long to get to the Stalfos, who's... honestly pretty dang mundane. He's just a skeleton man with minimal armour, a sword and shield. The Stalfos first show up in the Forest Temple, and perhaps are the first enemy that actually mirrors Link's sword-and-shield fighting style -- the Lizalfos are fast, but can't actually block. The Stalfos themselves are surprisingly tough considering their original 2D counterparts are kind of some of the weakest enemies around, but perhaps my favourite part is late in the game in the Spirit Temple where Link has to fight a Stalfos as Child Link (all other Stalfoses are fought as an adult) and the sheer challenge and gap in strength is pretty felt.
Despite looking pretty goofy as far as skeletons go, the Stalfoses are actually noted by the game to be adults that got lost in the Lost Woods and cursed to wander the woods forever as skeletons instead of children, who become Skull Kids instead. Pretty spooky!
So in the 2D Zelda games we've got the Wallmasters, one of the most iconic enemies. Giant disembodied hands that crawl up the walls, grab Link and tosses him back to the start of the dungeon. And now we get their return! While the Japanese version of OOT calls these "Fallmasters", the localization team evidently realizes how iconic the Wallmasters from the 2D games are. And honestly, the first encounter you have with a Wallmaster in this game is pretty damn awesomely set up. An ambiguous warning when you enter your room, then a scare chord followed with an increasingly large shadow before a giant, disembodied demonic hand swoops down and grabs Link... sure, the actual effect -- sending Link to the start of the dungeon -- is more annoying than harmful, but goddamn, the Wallmasters certainly have style and succeed in being pretty damn creepy. While you can certainly dodge them, one of the coolest things you can do is to roll out of the way, and before the Wallmasters return to the ceiling, you rush in and unleash a barrage of sword blows and murder the giant hand. One of the most iconic enemies in Zelda for a reason, and I definitely believe that Ocarina of Time's depiction is one of the ones that made the Wallmasters so damn memorable.
The green Floormasters are a lot more mundane, just... just regular enemies that scuttle around the Shadow Temple and basically just jump around while being invinsible, and then split into three smaller Floormasters upon death. I guess they didn't want to waste the model? Kinda wished they put more effort instead of just painting it solid neon green, though.
As I said before, we needed themed enemies to make each themed dungeon feel unique, but as an old game, you can't waste too many enemies on a specific dungeon since that only makes up a portion of the full game. So... yeah, the Torch Slug is a pretty basic "take an animal, add fire to it" monster in the same vein as a Fire Keese... but the fact that the actual slug body has magma textures does help to make it a bit more... well-integrated, I want to say? It's basically Slugma, too. Is there like a Japanese legend about magma slugs I'm not aware about? Interestingly, the way you beat them is either 'extinguishing' their flames with the hookshots or flipping them over by using the hammer, neither of which is really thematic to a magma slug. I wonder if these were originally conceptualized as 3D Helmasaurs?
Oh, these fuckers. The Like Like return and they're still bizarrely ambiguous. Giant cylindrical maybe-plant, maybe-fleshy blobs, the Like Likes are... Y'know, I'm still not sure what they are. They're vaguely phallic and very disgusting, but most of all, they are irritating as they try to eat Link up, squish him aroud a bit, and then eat the shield and tunic he's wearing. Link has to kill the Like Like quickly, otherwise the items are permanently destroyed.
Honestly, fuck these guys. They're gross.
The Door Mimic... is a neat little D&D homage. Sure, it doesn't sprout teeth or anything, but they just basically slam down on Link if he tries to open them. Of course, if you actually stop and look, you realize that the Door Mimic's doors jut outwards pretty conspicuously, and it's just that they show up so rarely and sparsely that you're pretty damn likely to be surprised. I like that this thing exists in this game, actually.
Freezard is the only ice-specific enemy with its own model, because the Ice Keese and White Wolfos are kind of repaints... and mostly that's because the Ice Temple was cut out from being a full-on dungeon into a shorter mini-dungeon. Nintendo did compensate and give us a huge icy area in Majora's Mask, though. Regardless, I do like the Freezards, as weirdly ambiguous as they are. Twilight Princess would reimagine them as far cooler looking things, but I do kind of like just how vague these original Freezards are. Are they totems? Weird angry moa statue like things with head spikes? Interestingly, they're susceptible to being smashed with a hammer, and actually not to fire. Interesting, if not showcased a lot.
The Gibdo continues the tradition of more powerful variants of ReDeads being just mummy versions. Not much to say here, they're more powerful than Gibdos and show up in the Adult levels -- namely, the Well and the Shadow Temple, the spooky themed dungeons. The Gibdo's pretty neat, but by the point you encouter them the novelty of how spooky the ReDead is has kind of worn off.
The Water Temple, as overblownly notorious as it is, doesn't really have a lot of unique enemies. Instead, your biggest enemy is the water level puzzle. There is the Spike, though, which are metallic spiky balls that default as little metallic balls in the ocean, but enter a spiky form and roll after Link if he swims close enough. Kinda bland in my opinion.
The Shell Blade, on the other hand, is pretty hilarious! It's a freaking clam, and it's invulnerable to all weapons, and they will propel themselves spiky-butt-end first towards Link while spitting out water from its mouth... like a real clam! Of course, as you can probably guess, that tongue-like organ that's going to be facing away from you is the weak point. You kill the Shell Blade by ripping out the organ with a hookshot. For a clam enemy, this one's actually pretty cool.
The Gerudo Thief is the miniboss of the Gerudo Fortress. Generally, Legend of Zelda shies away from having humans (or humanoid) enemies being killed, especially early on, with most of the enemies being monsters. And while Link has to sneak into the fortress of the nomadic desert thief clan of the Gerudo, most of their guards act more like obstacles then enemies -- you don't fight them, you just sneak around them. The only exception are the Gerudo Thieves, which whirl around with their twin scimitars and fight Link as minibosses. Link has to fight four of them to rescue four hostages, and are actually pretty fun to fight against. Because Nintendo doesn't want Link to murder humans (yet), the Gerudo Thieves just explicitly surrender, drop a key, and ninja bomb away.
The Dinalfos (a.k.a. Dynalfos in some translations) is a reskinned, more powreful Lizalfos, and I do like just how different changing a gecko-face to an angry, ambiguous crocodile/dinosaur face ends up making this creature look so much badass. The Dinalfos also seems to have swapped out a sword for a lance, though it's hard to tell with the pixels here. It's a shame that they don't actually show up a lot, only showing up in the completely optional Gerudo's Training Ground, as well as the final dungeon.
The final huge area is the Gerudo Desert, which... actually mostly just features skeleton enemies and Armoses. But we do have good old Leever from the Zelda games as a common enemy in the desert overworld, spinning and bursting out of the ground. I'm not sure what the Leevers are, still, sort of looking like spinning, carnivorous desert cacti with a weirdly animal-like maw and eyeball on its top. Honestly, I really do love the imagery of these things lying in wait under the sand, and then bursting out and spinning around like little tops. Most adorably, they're just unable to touch Link if he hops up a rock or anything that's not sand, just angrily spinning around the nearby sand before sinking back into the ground.
The final non-boss enemy we're talking about here is the Anubis... which is just a floating Anubis effigy. Found in the Spirit Temple, they're honestly kind of underwhelming. They just shoot fire, and die to fire arrows. Honestly, as the last unique enemy before we get to the bosses, the Anubis is pretty lackluster.
Keep a lookout for a follow-up where I dissect the minibosses and the bosses in this game!
So the first ones we'll talk about are the very first enemies that Link faces as a kid, and before he has all of his fancy equipment, which are the Deku Baba, which... are just giant venus flytrap style plants in the same vein as Mario's Piranha Plants. Very simple as far as these things go, but it's always just such a bizarre treat to see what's otherwise a pretty harmless real-life organism like a flower be translated into a dangerous fantasy monster. Or, well, relatively dangerous.
The Withered Deku Baba, as its name implies, is 'withered' and weak, standing ram-rod straight and just sort of clatter around like noisy little nuisances as opposed to actually being threats. I'm 90% sure they can't actually hurt Link unless he runs straight into them. The actual Deku Baba is actually proactive, behaving sort of like a snake rooted to a spot that tries to chomp down on Link when he passes by, and even hide in the grass by retracting its massive purple fang-head. Which I never really thought about, but man, what a weird feature to give to a plant monster. I guess they just act kinda like Bobbit Worms or something? The Withered version will drop "Deku Sticks" that Link can harvest as fragile spear-club things, while the regular Baba will drop seeds that Link weaponizes as slingshot ammunition. Ocarina of Time doesn't have a complex crafting system like subsequent games, but it does make all of the monster drops feel thematic and count into making a cohesive world, y'know?This is the Deku Baba's first appearance in the Legend of Zelda franchise, and the freaking wacky hidden trap-flowers will continue making appearances in basically every second Legend of Zelda game in the future. Not all the OOT monsters have official artwork, but I'll be including them for those that have. The more powerful variant, the Big Deku Baba, shows up in the 'future' timeline segments of the game (spoiler-slash-surprise, Ocarina of Time features time travel), and while a simple resizing affair, is a neat way to show how apparently even the mundane Deku Babas have grown wild, out of control, and actually basically invade the previously happy Kokiri Village.
These next set of monsters are a wee bit weird, because the models double as both NPC's and as part of the soulless, "kill-em-all-without-morality-issues" enemies that you face throughout your journey through Ocarina of Time. Doesn't help that Majora's Mask, the sequel to this, actually gives you the ability to transform into a Deku Scrub and features an entire society and town featuring the race, meaning that moreso than any other enemy in this game, the Scrubs (this was a time before 'scrub' is a derogative gamer term) are straight-up sentient beings that Link sort of murder en masse throughout his journey.
The Deku Scrubs (originally called the "Deku Nuts" in Japanese) are... pretty interesting creature. I can sort of easily describe this as sort of a cross between the Pokemons Oddish and Bellsprout, and like the Deku Baba, they spend most of their time hiding underground because that's what the designers really want to highlight about plants, I guess? The Scrubs are a lot more distinctive, though, with their leaf 'hat' being pretty visible. Mostly it's a matter of actually hitting the Scrubs than actually spotting them. Unlike the dumb Babas, the Scrubs are smart enough to hide into subterranean safety if Link gets close, so Link has to use his shield to bounce back the giant wooden seeds that the Scrubs shoot out towards him... but once Link gets ranged weapons like the boomerang and the bow, they get significantly easier to defeat.
Like what I said in my Pokemon reviews, I really do think that as much as the design trope is overused in Japanese-originated mascots, a little huge head with big eyes, stubby limbs and little accessories just really work at making a good silhouette, y'know? It's no surprise that the Deku Scrubs get such a highly increased role in Majora's Mask. Hell, a bunch of friendly Deku Scrubs even feature in some parts and side-quests in this game's foresty areas.
Two different variations are also found in the game. With an all-new model, the Business Scrub have ganglier limbs, a less hood-like hat and a facial expression that just looks kinda-sorta nervous and pathetic... honestly, combined with the little sound effect jingle that plays whenever you meet one of these, as well as the pose of the hands, the Business Scrubs... well, basically behaves like a regular Deku Scru in battle... until you defeat them. Then they will miserably beg for mercy and then try and sell their merchandise to you, essentially serving as one-time merchants. A pretty fun little gimmick... more monsters in these fantasy video games should try and give up and try and hawk their goods at you!
The Mad Scrub is an autumn-themed recolored version of the Deku Scrub, and, like the Big Deku Baba, mainly shows up in the future timeline sequence. It's sort of implied from the name that the "Mad" Scrub have truly gone insane, and unlike their two green brethren, the Mad Scrubs will just machinegun their seed at Link without even trying to hide, making them susceptible to Link just charging up and slicing them to death.
Overall, though, the Scrubs start a glorious tradition of the 3D Zelda games really loving to make their own weird plant-men races, something I definitely approve of!
I'm going to lump these three together because they're essentially the same monster, just resized. From left to right, we have the Skullwalltula, Skulltula and the Big Skulltula. They're an interestingly simple way to take a simple monster trope -- the giant spider -- and make them distinctive. And, sure, turning the spider's abdomen into a grinning, winking human skull is pretty damn interesting! A lot of real-life arthropods do actually have markings resembling larger creatures (including, yes, the Noble False Widow, or the "Death's Head Spider" who has skull-esque markings on their abdomens) but since this is fantasy-land, it appears that the Skulltulas have just straight-up grown osseus carapaces aroud their abdomens. And, well, at least for the Skulltula and the Big Skulltula, you have to hit their weak spot -- their underside -- meaning that this is basically a 3D Koopa. But more spidery. Thank god they conveniently just hang down on a string and rotate around... they don't actually scuttle around on their legs until, like, Twilight Princess or something. Like most early-game enemies, once you get a specific item (the Hookshot in this case), you can bypass the whole "wait for it to expose its weak point" and just murder it in one shot.In Japanese, these are named "Staltula" to fit with the "Stal" naming scheme of other undead monsters in the game, but the "skull" prefix does admittedly flow a lot better.
The Gold Skulltula have a decidedly more interesting model, with Spiny-Orb-Weaver-esque spikes, and, well, a golden coloration. There are a hundred Gold Skulltulas hidden across both versions of Hyrule and these are, I think, the first (or one of the first) collection quests in a Legend of Zelda game before they go overboard with these sidequests. They are less enemies and more collectibles, but Link still has to 'kill' them to have them count towards his total. I think there's a story associated with these, like, a family that was cursed to turn into Skulltulas that Link has to save by killing the 100 Golden Skulltulas or something?
The Gohma Larva is sort of a very loose adaptation of the original Gohma enemies from the 2D games, which are like one-eyed cartoon spiders. While still ostensibly arthropods, I really do like that the Gohma Larva in this game look more like... well, weird mutant creatures. I'm not even sure how to describe them. Giant spheres with one eye, chicken legs, and... and weird crystalline stingers? They're a neat reimagination of the classic one-eyed spider enemies, albeit looking more like something out of Star Wars than a regular spider or insectoid enemy, but I do like that the Gohma Larva isn't just readily equated into a real-life arthropod.
The Gohma Larva only show up in the very first dungeon of the game, the Deku Tree, first showing up individually (and hatching from eggs) until the true menace, the mother Gohma (we'll cover bosses and minibosses in a separate article), shows up as the big bad boss of the dungeon. Of course, since this is Legend of Zelda, the mother Gohma summons a bunch of these weird chicken-bugs as minions during her boss fight. Honestly, at this point in time, a big bug enemy that lays eggs that hatch into miniature bugs have sort of been done to death, but I do appreciate how fucking weird OOT's Gohma Larvae look.
Man oh man, fuck the Peahats. I simultaneously adore them as enemies, and also hate them because I'm pretty sure I died more times to Peahats alone than with any other enemy or boss fights in Ocarina of Time. The Peahats in the 2D games were honestly a generic starter enemy, just helicopter flowers that float around screens in early areas.
Well, OOT's Peahats are still helicopter flowers, and they populate the largest area in the overworld, Hyrule Field. And in one of the coolest parts of their design, the Peahats are perhaps one of the nicest signs that the designers of Ocarina of Time really put in effort in designing the enemies. Being giant plant monsters, during the night, the Peahats are planted and rooted to the groud, leaving only the huge flower-leaf part visible and are content to shoot out the Peahat Larvas out, which are little helicopter buzzsaw drones, to chase down Link. Which is annoying, because the little larvas move fast and are hard to damage.
But in the day, plants are more active, right? So these giant Peahats (and I do mean giant, they're easily twice or three times Link's size) will just burst out of the ground, showing off their massive gourd-like body and having gigantic sword-like helicopter blades... and the Peahat can only be damaged by a weak spot that is constantly facing away from Link in the center of those helicopter blades. Honestly, as an enemy that's completely optional in the game and just something encoutered in Hyrule Field, it's impressive just how much thought they put into this one enemy that you encounter as you travel around, and can even just avoid -- a huge, huge fan of the Peahats and how dickish they actually are.
Speaking of the day/night cycle of the game, at night... zombie skeletons show up in Hyrule Field! The Stalchild (Stalbaby in the original Japanese) are extremely goofy looking, with that head looking more like... well, some weird animal-man like Disney's Goofy or something. I don't think it even has a lower jaw! I'm not sure if any race in Ocarina of Time actually corresponds to these Stalchildren, and I suppose Nintendo's just doing this so as not to traumatize the kids playing this game too much (gotta wait until Dead Hand shows up for that!).
Basically, the Stalchildren will just keep showing up and rattle and swarm and beat up Link and, like the Peahat, acts more of a 'hey, isn't it great if you had better equipment?' gear checks. As kind of an easter egg, if you kill enough Stalchildren, a giant one will emerge to fuck shit up, but other than its size, it's just like, got twice the HP or something.
You kinda need a bunch of mundane enemies, and the Guay are basically large-billed mean crows. They're just kind of assholes that peck Link in some areas, and... honestly, kind of boring. Like the Stalchildren, a Giant Guay will show up if you kill enough.
Like the Guay, the Keese are honestly "just bats". Like, sure, they're stylized and whatnot, but they're just angry D&D bats that show up in most dungeons, hide in the roof and dark shadows, and just swoop down and slam unprepared players and chip down their health. They're not dangerous, but unlike the Guay, at least the game does something interesting with them later on.
Because, well, later on you get into fire-themed and ice-themed dungeons, and Fire Keese and Ice Keese show up respectively, and they're... well, Keese with elements, respectively. Fire Keese deals fire damage, and is vulnerable to Link's ice arrows, and vice versa. The interesting thing, of course, is that if a regular Keese should fly through a torch, or if Link shoots them with a fire (or ice) arrow, the Keese will actually transform into its elemental version, showing that the Keese is actually far neater than "just a bat". They can actually mutate depending on what they're exposed to, which is pretty damn cool.
The Cuccoo are more of an easter egg NPC you can interact with more than anything. They're chickens! They're hilarious... but don't ever hit them with a sword. Continuing a tradition started in either ALTTP or Link's Awakening, they damn things are invulnerable, and hitting one with a sword will cause a swarm of angry, invincible Cuccoos to show up and pursue and attack Link and murder him to death unless you somehow have enough Matrix-style skills to avoid them and escape Kakariko Village.
This makes the Cuccoo, as always in Zelda games, the most powerful enemy in the game. Honestly, if Link had actually bothered to weaponize the damn chickens instead of relying on a magic sword in a mystic forest, Ganondorf would've been beaten looooong ago.
Another one from the 2D games are Legend of Zelda's unique take on ghostly enemies, which are the Poe, little pudgy cartoon ghosts with only eyes visible under the darkness covered by their hoods. Also, they carry lanterns. And the lanterns actually work to the gimmick of defeating them! Found in the graveyards at night, Link actually using the lock-on feature on the Poe would make them disappear... other than the lantern they are holding. For a game that focuses so much on locking on, the only way that Link can actually beat the Poes is actually not locking on and just charging in and slashing them while they're visible.
There's a bunch of variants as seen here, in addition to a couple of unique miniboss models. The two-horned Poes are sort of rare encounters in the adult timeline, but otherwise behave similarly to their child timeline counterparts. The one on the far left that's a lot more white are Big Poes, and there are ten of them that appear specifically as part of a side-quest. Basically, they show up when Link approaches their hiding spot and float away within a matter of seconds and pass through walls and stuff and Link has to shoot them with the bow fast enough to kill them, harvest their souls and sell them to the enigmatic Poe Collector, a pretty creepy motherfucker that looks like a boss fight himself. The Poe Collector will basically reward Link with money and an empty bottle while he harvests the souls of ghosts for him. Profit...?
Regardless, considering how charming the Poes are, how well-integrated they are to the fighting system while also being pretty simple, and how neatly distinct the designers managed to make the different variants despite them being palette swaps, the Poes are pretty neat enemies to fight for sure!
So one of the earlier quests that Child Link has to go through includes investigating the mystery of Kakariko Village's graveyard, and, what do you know, there's a whole underground chamber under these damn gravestones, populated by the Redeads (or ReDeads... I spent a long time thinking they were pronounced red-deads). And they're just sort of zombies, dessicated corpses with a burial mask. Or is that just a sunken, sallow mummified face? And in theory, this pixelated zombie man shouldn't be scary.
But they fucking kind of are. It's a combination of the fact that you jump straight from the cartoony monsters before the ReDead encounter straight to these uncannily creepy things, as well as the general music of the graveyard levels, as well as the unearthly shriek that these things make... but mostly, the creepiest things about the Redeads are the fact that they are deceptively dumb looking. The first time you meet them, the Redeads are just shambling aroud like B-movie zombies that go 'braiinsss'... but when Link comes close (and it's explicitly sound they react to) they suddenly go straight into World War Z zombie mode and run towards Link while screaming... before jumping onto Link's face and
Again, pretty damn scary until Link gets the appropriate item to take them down -- the Sun's Song, in this case, which stuns the ReDeads themselves and allows Link to get a lot of good hits in. In perhaps the biggest case of badass decay ever in this game, once Link goes through the time-skip and you gain control of seven-years-later adult Link, you encounter a swarm of ReDead shambling around the ruins of Castle Town (implied to be the zombified forms of the merchants you meet as a kid!) and you just take them down as easily as Deku Babas.
The Wolfos (Zelda really loves the -fos suffix) is... kind of boring? He's just a gangle wolf-man with a hiariously goofy expression for what's probably supposed to be a scary enemy. Most of the time, we fight the gray version, and they're... like enemies that are significantly tougher and are just a straight-up "brawl till one of you dies" enemy, unlike the more puzzle-like or item-gated enemies. Maybe that's why I find them uninteresting? A snow-themed variant, the White Wolfos, appears in the mini-dungeon, the Ice Cavern.
Perhaps my favourite reimagination of a classic 2D enemy is the humble Octorok. While the Peahat, the Leever, the Tektite, the Keese and a lot of others are just basically the same enemies transplanted into 3D, the Octoroks are actually vastly changed. Sure, they're still traditional Japanese cartoon octopus that shoot rocks out of their siphons, but instead of wandering around the land, they now live in the water, popping out with those adorably sad-looking green eyes while launching rocks at Link. It's such a small change in habitat, but it honestly made the Octorok so much more natural-looking. Huge fan!
The Tektites are still essentially the same, as I mentioned before. Little weird nondescript bug enemies with a central body, a weirdly fleshy eyeball and four grasshopper esque legs. And they jump around! Two variants show up in Ocarina of Time, and I really do love how the game actually differentiates them based on habitat. The Blue Tektites populate areas nearby water, and jump around in areas aroud the Zora River and the water temple, whereas the Red Tektites hang aroud the volcanic Death Mountain. Not the most complex enemies, since all they do is bounce around and make it sometimes hard to hit them, but still, bug enemies are cool! The official artwork actually shows them to be more grasshopper-y, with additional little buggy mandibles. Pretty cool stuff, honestly.The Beamos is perhaps one of the more iconic enemies from older games, being more traps and obstacles than actual creatures you have to overcome. The Beamos is reimagined from a Corinthian column into this... this bizarre, genuinely uncomfortable looking... thing. Look at it! What the fuck is that thing even supposed to be? Sure, it's still a mostly-invulnerable column with a cyclopean eyeball turret that shoots laser beams. That bit isn't changed. But instead of an almost-mechanical vibe that past Beamoses in 2D games has, OOT's Beamos look more like homunculi of sorts. Look at that uncomfortably human-looking giant nose and toothy lip on the bottom half, as well as those pudgy feet!
Pretty genuinely bizarre and honestly disturbing designs, and they actually go back to being a lot more mechanical (well, magical steampunk) in subsequent 3D games, but kudos to whoever made the Beamos look so memorably creepy in this game. The hint is that "Beamos doesn't like smoke"... which apparently means they get blown up by bombs. Okay. There are also waaaaay too many of these damn things in dungeons.
The Baby Dodongo are... honestly kind of weirdly disappointing if not accompanied by their larger cousins. They're just these weird little worm-like snake things with a huge triangular head, which look kinda boring. They don't show up a lot, mostly in the Dodongo's Cavern dungeon, and... they are actually explosive, and actually relevant in solving a specific puzzle where Link has to goad them to chase him and explode in a specific spot. Would've been really boring without his adult counterpart.
The official artwork makes it even more confusing, making the thing look more like an angry fish-headed worm more than anything.
Regular Dodongo goes from a lumpy ceratopsian dinosaur in the 2D games into this two-legged diant lizard-dragon thing, another pretty interesting reinvention. Subsequent games (even 2D ones!) would actually alternate pretty strongly on the original ceratopsian Dodongo and this two-legged giant komodo dragon. Thankfully, the game came with a manual that shows just how reptilian and dinosaurian the Dodongo is meant to look like.
In the lore of Ocarina of Time, the Dodongo have taken over the territory of Link's rock-people allies, the Gorons, and are the subject of the Dodongo's Cavern dungeon. They're pretty fun to fight, being especially challenging for Young Link. They breathe fire, they spin around to make sure Link doesn't strike its weak tail, and are also weak to bombs -- you can either make the Dodongo eat them, or just lob the bombs wantonly at the Dodongo. Apparently, despite the Dodongo being pretty damn vulnerable to bombs, the Gorons are able to make safe bomb-bags out of harvested Dodongo stomach. Oookay? I really do think that out of all of the models in Ocarina of Time, the Dodongo is perhaps the one that has aged the least well. Still a cool enemy to fight, though.
The Armos in this game is... interesting. So the original Armos in the 2D games are supposed to be walking, animated suits of armor, but in practice the sprites just sort of wobble and jump around. Come the translation to 3D, and apparently the Armos also do the same, just bouncing around like a giant, sentient chest piece. I do like just how weirdly in-humanoid this thing looks, just like someone carved a crude face onto a lumpy rock, and glued the horns and weapons in. Considering how golems are made in many fantasy settings, that might very well be the case. Armoses don't actually show up too many times, mostly just in the fire-themed dungeons, but they hide among statues that look like them, which is a nice little gimmick.
The Lizalfos make their debut in this game (unless I'm missing a 2D Lizalfos somewhere) and, well, they're humanoid and for the standards of this game's enemies, are pretty complex with a fair amount of moving parts. They are obviously supposed to represent like Lizardmen or whatever from D&D, and they're pretty simple. Just giant gecko-people with a sword and rudimentary clothing textures, just jumping and scuttling around. They're honestly pretty neat looking, honestly, and Ocarina of Time actually sparses Lizalfos encounters enough for them to feel like a neat mini-mini-boss.
It is really hilarious, though, how the official artwork of the Lizalfos made it out to be this badass, musclebound Lizardman warrior when the actual in-game model looks more like a hyperactive angry gecko.
The Shabom is an enemy specific to the dungeon Jabu Jabu's Belly, because, yes, a portion of the game takes place in the belly of a giant whale-god. The Shabom are admittedly minimal-effort, though, just bubble enemies that blow up if they get too close.
Ah, now we're talking. The Biri and the Bari are electrical floating jellyfishes, and associating the electrical element to jellyfishes is actually a pretty fun way to interpret the stinging venom of real-life jellyfishes. I also do like that we have two variants of them. The Biri look more like real-life jellyfishes, with floating, curtain-like tentacles and a pretty fun colourful bell; whereas the Bari look more... sci-fi-esque, with an almost Metroid-esque design, with fleshy tentacles tipped with barbs. Like their 2D counterparts, Baris will explode and split into multiple Biris upon dying. A pretty good reimagination of the original 2D Biri and Bari, honestly.
The Biri and the Bari are another one of those item-gated enemies, being almost invincible initially -- you can kill them with bombs, but with them floating around it's significantly harder than hitting a Beamos. But once you get the Boomerang, the Biri will fall apart very easily. Ocarina of Time actually does a pretty great job at having weaker versions of a dungeon's final boss basically be little enemies Link encounters earlier in the dungeon, with the boss of Jabu Jabu's Belly being a monstrous version of a Bari.
Oh, this one is cool. The Stinger is yet another enemy exclusive to Jabu Jabu's Belly and the Water Temple, and look like weird alien manta-ray creatures. The teal and orange coloration is especially striking, as are the four beady red eyes and the serrated fin-tips. They dive in and out of pools and alternate with floating around to try and ram into Link. While pretty simple enemies, again, I do appreciate that Ocarina of Time has enough themed variations to make each dungeon feel pretty unique.
The Tailpasaran is... a weird critter. Based on the 2D Moldorm ("Tail" in Japanese) enemies, the Tailpasaran look a lot more like a straight-up 3D-fication of a 2D enemy, just a bunch of circular spheres attached to a centipede-like head. Honestly, as much as OOT is admittedly primitive in its graphics, the Tailpasaran sort of stand out as looking particularly odd. They also only honestly show up once or twice in the Jabu Jabu dungeon, supposedly being like parasitic tapeworm enemies or something, and duck in and out of their 'nests' and zap Link.
The Parasitic Tentacle is more of an environmental fixture, just being a huge fleshy tentacle that Link has to destroy three of inside Jabu Jabu's Belly, and apparently connected to the main parasite body (the boss, Barinade)... but the game and Na'vi identifies the Parasitic Tentacle as an enemy monster. So... yeah. It's a thing.
The Skull Kid (Stal Kid in Japanese) is more of a mischievous nuisance than a straight-up enemy, apparently a race of fairy-like tricksters that live in the Lost Woods, an area where Link will get turned around and sent back to the entrance if he doesn't know which way to go. The Skull Kids are apparently Kokiri (or children) who got lost in the Lost Woods or something? They're mostly mischievous, although some help out by giving Child Link items or trinkets if you solve their little puzzles. However, apparently they only want to play with children, because showing up in the adult timeline as an adult, one of the Skull Kids you explicitly befriended by giving him a cute skull mask will attack adult Link, and unlike most other enemies... this one does not respawn. Yep, that's right. Adult Link just straight-up murdered someone he befriended as a kid.
Their original 3D model has them have black skin, duck bills and glowing red eyes, but probably because of international racism concerns, most subsequent remakes and reissues of Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask have given the Skull Kid a more scarecrow-inspired face.
Honestly, a pretty interesting little enemy that's simultaneously creepy and friendly... basically what the fair folk really should be. Skull Kid's easily one of the breakout characters in Ocarina of Time, becoming essentially the big bad of Majora's Mask and major antagonist/supporting-trickster-characters in subsequent games.
The Moblin and Club Moblin ("Bossblin" in Japanese) are giant bulldog-faced orcs that basically are a neat homage to another enemy from the 2D games. Instead of being comically blue and fat, though, these pig-men are muscular, tall, and actually look threatening other than their piggy, doggy faces. These are, of course, obviously orcs before World of Warcraft sort of changed the pop culture default image of orcs from "pig-men" to "green musclemen with a huge underbite and tusks". Zelda as a franchise has often gone back and forth from showing Moblin as being pig-men or bulldog-men. As a commenter pointed out, though, I missed the noses on these specific Moblin incarnations showing that they're, in fact, bulldogs.
Despite their impressive looking stature and their implied task of being sent by Ganondorf to guard the Sacred Grove post-timeskip, the Moblins are hilariously weak and Link would have far more problems with the Mad Scrubs earlier in the area than the Moblins.
From left to right, we have the Blue Bubble, Green Bubble, Red Bubble and the very rare White Bubble. Despite their names, the Bubbles are actually angry floating skulls found in the more... sinister and undead-themed dungeons in the game. Honestly, while simple, I do really like the visuals of a yakking skull with adorable wing-ears just flying aroud. And the three most common variants are on fire!Best of all is how you fight them. After taking enough damage (you have to time your strikes to when the flame 'shield' activates and turns off), the flames go out and the poor skull just hops around on the ground desperately to run away from Link, and Link has to chase down and smash them for good, otherwise they regenerate into a floating Ghost Rider head again.
I can't believe it took us this long to get to the Stalfos, who's... honestly pretty dang mundane. He's just a skeleton man with minimal armour, a sword and shield. The Stalfos first show up in the Forest Temple, and perhaps are the first enemy that actually mirrors Link's sword-and-shield fighting style -- the Lizalfos are fast, but can't actually block. The Stalfos themselves are surprisingly tough considering their original 2D counterparts are kind of some of the weakest enemies around, but perhaps my favourite part is late in the game in the Spirit Temple where Link has to fight a Stalfos as Child Link (all other Stalfoses are fought as an adult) and the sheer challenge and gap in strength is pretty felt.
Despite looking pretty goofy as far as skeletons go, the Stalfoses are actually noted by the game to be adults that got lost in the Lost Woods and cursed to wander the woods forever as skeletons instead of children, who become Skull Kids instead. Pretty spooky!
So in the 2D Zelda games we've got the Wallmasters, one of the most iconic enemies. Giant disembodied hands that crawl up the walls, grab Link and tosses him back to the start of the dungeon. And now we get their return! While the Japanese version of OOT calls these "Fallmasters", the localization team evidently realizes how iconic the Wallmasters from the 2D games are. And honestly, the first encounter you have with a Wallmaster in this game is pretty damn awesomely set up. An ambiguous warning when you enter your room, then a scare chord followed with an increasingly large shadow before a giant, disembodied demonic hand swoops down and grabs Link... sure, the actual effect -- sending Link to the start of the dungeon -- is more annoying than harmful, but goddamn, the Wallmasters certainly have style and succeed in being pretty damn creepy. While you can certainly dodge them, one of the coolest things you can do is to roll out of the way, and before the Wallmasters return to the ceiling, you rush in and unleash a barrage of sword blows and murder the giant hand. One of the most iconic enemies in Zelda for a reason, and I definitely believe that Ocarina of Time's depiction is one of the ones that made the Wallmasters so damn memorable.
The green Floormasters are a lot more mundane, just... just regular enemies that scuttle around the Shadow Temple and basically just jump around while being invinsible, and then split into three smaller Floormasters upon death. I guess they didn't want to waste the model? Kinda wished they put more effort instead of just painting it solid neon green, though.
As I said before, we needed themed enemies to make each themed dungeon feel unique, but as an old game, you can't waste too many enemies on a specific dungeon since that only makes up a portion of the full game. So... yeah, the Torch Slug is a pretty basic "take an animal, add fire to it" monster in the same vein as a Fire Keese... but the fact that the actual slug body has magma textures does help to make it a bit more... well-integrated, I want to say? It's basically Slugma, too. Is there like a Japanese legend about magma slugs I'm not aware about? Interestingly, the way you beat them is either 'extinguishing' their flames with the hookshots or flipping them over by using the hammer, neither of which is really thematic to a magma slug. I wonder if these were originally conceptualized as 3D Helmasaurs?
Oh, these fuckers. The Like Like return and they're still bizarrely ambiguous. Giant cylindrical maybe-plant, maybe-fleshy blobs, the Like Likes are... Y'know, I'm still not sure what they are. They're vaguely phallic and very disgusting, but most of all, they are irritating as they try to eat Link up, squish him aroud a bit, and then eat the shield and tunic he's wearing. Link has to kill the Like Like quickly, otherwise the items are permanently destroyed.
Honestly, fuck these guys. They're gross.
The Door Mimic... is a neat little D&D homage. Sure, it doesn't sprout teeth or anything, but they just basically slam down on Link if he tries to open them. Of course, if you actually stop and look, you realize that the Door Mimic's doors jut outwards pretty conspicuously, and it's just that they show up so rarely and sparsely that you're pretty damn likely to be surprised. I like that this thing exists in this game, actually.
Freezard is the only ice-specific enemy with its own model, because the Ice Keese and White Wolfos are kind of repaints... and mostly that's because the Ice Temple was cut out from being a full-on dungeon into a shorter mini-dungeon. Nintendo did compensate and give us a huge icy area in Majora's Mask, though. Regardless, I do like the Freezards, as weirdly ambiguous as they are. Twilight Princess would reimagine them as far cooler looking things, but I do kind of like just how vague these original Freezards are. Are they totems? Weird angry moa statue like things with head spikes? Interestingly, they're susceptible to being smashed with a hammer, and actually not to fire. Interesting, if not showcased a lot.
The Gibdo continues the tradition of more powerful variants of ReDeads being just mummy versions. Not much to say here, they're more powerful than Gibdos and show up in the Adult levels -- namely, the Well and the Shadow Temple, the spooky themed dungeons. The Gibdo's pretty neat, but by the point you encouter them the novelty of how spooky the ReDead is has kind of worn off.
The Water Temple, as overblownly notorious as it is, doesn't really have a lot of unique enemies. Instead, your biggest enemy is the water level puzzle. There is the Spike, though, which are metallic spiky balls that default as little metallic balls in the ocean, but enter a spiky form and roll after Link if he swims close enough. Kinda bland in my opinion.
The Shell Blade, on the other hand, is pretty hilarious! It's a freaking clam, and it's invulnerable to all weapons, and they will propel themselves spiky-butt-end first towards Link while spitting out water from its mouth... like a real clam! Of course, as you can probably guess, that tongue-like organ that's going to be facing away from you is the weak point. You kill the Shell Blade by ripping out the organ with a hookshot. For a clam enemy, this one's actually pretty cool.
The Gerudo Thief is the miniboss of the Gerudo Fortress. Generally, Legend of Zelda shies away from having humans (or humanoid) enemies being killed, especially early on, with most of the enemies being monsters. And while Link has to sneak into the fortress of the nomadic desert thief clan of the Gerudo, most of their guards act more like obstacles then enemies -- you don't fight them, you just sneak around them. The only exception are the Gerudo Thieves, which whirl around with their twin scimitars and fight Link as minibosses. Link has to fight four of them to rescue four hostages, and are actually pretty fun to fight against. Because Nintendo doesn't want Link to murder humans (yet), the Gerudo Thieves just explicitly surrender, drop a key, and ninja bomb away.
The Dinalfos (a.k.a. Dynalfos in some translations) is a reskinned, more powreful Lizalfos, and I do like just how different changing a gecko-face to an angry, ambiguous crocodile/dinosaur face ends up making this creature look so much badass. The Dinalfos also seems to have swapped out a sword for a lance, though it's hard to tell with the pixels here. It's a shame that they don't actually show up a lot, only showing up in the completely optional Gerudo's Training Ground, as well as the final dungeon.
The final huge area is the Gerudo Desert, which... actually mostly just features skeleton enemies and Armoses. But we do have good old Leever from the Zelda games as a common enemy in the desert overworld, spinning and bursting out of the ground. I'm not sure what the Leevers are, still, sort of looking like spinning, carnivorous desert cacti with a weirdly animal-like maw and eyeball on its top. Honestly, I really do love the imagery of these things lying in wait under the sand, and then bursting out and spinning around like little tops. Most adorably, they're just unable to touch Link if he hops up a rock or anything that's not sand, just angrily spinning around the nearby sand before sinking back into the ground.
The final non-boss enemy we're talking about here is the Anubis... which is just a floating Anubis effigy. Found in the Spirit Temple, they're honestly kind of underwhelming. They just shoot fire, and die to fire arrows. Honestly, as the last unique enemy before we get to the bosses, the Anubis is pretty lackluster.
Keep a lookout for a follow-up where I dissect the minibosses and the bosses in this game!
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