While all The Legend of Zelda games are known for their memorable boss fights, Skyward Sword offers some of the most thrilling duels in the franchise. Also, now that the HD release of Skyward Sword is available on the Nintendo Switch, players can use the button controls to swing the sword with precision, making boss battles more satisfying. To make things even better, Skyward Sword is one of the few games in the franchise to feature a Boss Rush mode in which it’s possible to fight against your favorite bosses all over again.
Even if Skyward Sword is far from perfect, its approach to boss battles deserves praise. Thus, in celebration of the remake’s release, it’s time to rank all big baddies by how satisfying they are to destroy. A list such as this is somewhat subjective, but we’ll try to make our point the best as possible. We are also about to spoil all boss fights on Skyward Sword HD. Therefore, if you haven’t finished the game yet, explore the skies a little more before going through this list.
Spoilers Ahead
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8.The Imprisoned
We can all agree it feels incredible to fight colossal creatures. And I guess we can also agree that it’s not exactly fun to hit said creature's toes to defeat it.
The Imprisoned tries to bring something different to the franchise by adding time pressure to a boss fight, as the player must defeat the gargantuan demon before it reaches the Sealed Temple. Should the Imprisoned reach the temple, it’s game over, and you need to redo the fight from the start. If the combat were engaging, this wouldn’t be too much of a bother, but to defeat the Imprisoned, Link must literally destroy its toes, making the demon fall down and expose a weak spot on top of its head.
The biggest problem of the Imprisoned is that players must defeat the creature three times during the game’s main story. New fights add something to the mix by allowing Link to coordinate a bombing attack that stops the Imprisoned for a few seconds. At the same time, the demon learns new tricks to move faster towards the Sealed Temple. Nevertheless, the boss battle doesn’t change enough to become something entirely new. So, by the end of the game, defeating the Imprisoned once again is more bothersome than engaging.
7. Thousand-Year Arachnid: Moldarach
Moldarach is a classic The Legend of Zelda boss in all senses. The creature guards the exit of the Lanayru Mining Facility, where Link gets his hands on the Gust Bellows — one of the techno-magic tools that anticipated the themes explored in Breath of the Wild. With the Gust Bellows, Link can blow the sand away, a mechanic that’s perfectly integrated into the boss fight. That’s because Moldorach is a giant scorpion that can burrow in the sand.
Since Moldarach is one of the first bosses of Skyward Sword, the fight starts easily enough, with the player using sword movements to hit eyes hidden inside Moldarach’s claws. Once the scorpion’s claws are destroyed, the player must use the Gust Bellow to find the boss burrowed in the sand before Moldarach jumps over the player.
Moldarach is a perfectly satisfying boss battle. However, Moldarach’s fight feels too familiar to rise above other more satisfying combat encounters, especially when the boss shows up a second time as a miniboss in the Sand Sea.
6. Pyroclastic Fiend: Scaldera
At the end of the Earth Temple, players must face Scaldera, a fiery boulder with legs brought to life by Ghirahim. The boss looks somewhat clumsy, but as soon as you see Scaldera lit on fire and running in your direction, it quickly becomes a real menace.
The player fights Scaldera on a ramp, where the boss runs upwards and tries to set Link ablaze with its fiery body. To defeat Scaldera, players must use bombs to push Scaldera back, as the creature rolls down once its legs are protected inside its boulder-body. Once Scaldera takes a deep breath in order to spit fire in Link’s direction, the player should also throw bombs inside its mouth. The internal explosions crack parts of the boulder and reveal a weak spot behind it that can be hit with the sword.
Scaldera demands the player to use a new tool found in the temple and offers an explosive tug-of-war game that requires proper positioning and quick reaction. The only problem with Scaldera is execution. The weak spot sometimes doesn’t react to the sword when the player tries to hit it on a diagonal; it can be frustrating to see your sword move through Scaldera’s eye and realize the boss was not damaged. Also, refilling your bomb stock mid-battle is a pain since Link can only collect one bomb at a time.
5. Great Spirit of the Skies: Levias / Ocular Parasite: Bilocyte
Levias and Bilocyte are two parts of the same battle, even if they each get their own boss presentation. The fight starts in the skies, as Link uses Loftwing’s Spiral Charge to destroy giant eyes coming out of Levias’ body. The Sky Spirit, shaped like a flying whale, is infected by a vicious parasite, and Link must get the parasite’s attention by trimming down the infection. Even if Loftwing’s controls can be a little bit clunky, the fight to free Levias is as epic as it can be, with Link flying through stormy skies.
Once Link destroys all the visible signs of infection, Bilocyte emerges from inside of Levias body, and a second phase of the battle starts. Now, Link must jump from Loftwing and land on Levias back so that the core of the parasite can be destroyed. To kill Bilocyte, Link must reflect the parasite attacks with his sword, a callback to a classic mechanic in the franchise. However, since Skyward Sword allows players to control the sword’s swings, players need to reflect Bilocyte’s attacks in the proper direction, adding a new layer to the fight. If it weren’t for the clunky controls, this fight would be even more satisfying.
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4. Abyssal Leviathan: Tentalus
Every Zelda temple works similarly: First, Link must find a unique key; then, Link opens the door to a room where a boss battle happens. So it comes as a surprise when the final door of the Sandship doesn’t actually lead to a boss but to a simple engine room. At the same time, the ship gets attacked by a Kraken while the skies darken from gathering rain clouds. Link must run back through the temple—shaped like a ship—to the deck, where Tentalus awaits. On the way there, the boss destroys the temple-ship with its huge tentacles, which must be cut by charging and releasing the Skyward Strike.
Tentalus' introduction is already a novelty worth praising, but the fight against the Kraken boss is also great. First, Link must cut down enough tentacles to attract the boss’s attention, then shoot its eye to bring it down to the sword’s range. Once Tentalus gets weak enough, the boss will rage and break the ship even further, forcing Link to reposition the deck. Then, Tentalus’ tentacles become sea serpents that must be cut down quickly with the sword to provide an opening that allows the player to hit its eyes once again.
There’s a lot to love in Tentalus’ boss battle. It’s a multi-phased battle with an epic introduction, which subverts the formula and wrecks the temple itself.
3. Demise
The final boss of Skyward Sword offers an imposing challenge. Demise is a bulky humanoid holding a giant sword, and to defeat him in combat, the player must be at the top of their sword game.
The first phase of Demise’s boss battle is pretty straightforward. Link must parry and dodge Demise’s attacks while using any opening to hit the Demon King back. Unfortunately, this process can become repetitive, as the best strategy is to circle the boss, parry, attack, repeat.
In the second phase of his boss battle, Demise starts to channel his sword with the power of lightning, allowing him to shoot energy blasts at Link. Link can do the same with the Skyward Strike technique if the player raises the sword exactly when a new lightning bolt strikes down. Thus, besides dealing with an empowered Demise, the second phase of the Demon King fight demands the player pay attention to lightning bolts.
Demise’s boss battle is an epic combat between two evenly matched warriors that ends up with a powerful Final Blow. The only demerit of Demise’s battle is that it happens soon after the final confrontation against Ghirahim, which is also based on swordplay.
2. Demon Lord: Ghirahim
Just as the Imprisoned, Ghirahim must be defeated three times during Skyward Sword’s adventure. Contrary to the Imprisoned, it feels terrific beating him at each new encounter. Ghirahim is the first boss of Skyward Sword, and while the first fight is not exactly hard, it can be intimidating. At this point of the game, the player is still getting the hang of swinging the sword in different directions to defeat enemies. Ghirahim, however, puts the player’s skill to the test since the Demon Lord can deflect attacks coming from every direction. All fights against Ghirahim are battles of attrition, in which each warrior tries to find small openings in their adversary’s defenses.
The second battle against Ghirahim is not too different from the first, with the main difference being the level of aggressiveness of the Demon Lord. Nevertheless, the final encounter is as thrilling as a swordfight can be. At the end of Skyward Sword, Ghirahim’s body is fully covered in darkness, making him invulnerable to, well, everything. First, Link must push Ghirahim from platforms and use Final Blows to reveal a weak spot in the Demon Lord’s chest. Only then the real battle begins.
Ghirahim is a recurring villain that torments the player through all of Skyward Sword, so it indeed feels satisfying bringing him down during perfectly designed combats.
1. Ancient Automaton: Koloktos
There’s a guilty pleasure in destroying Koloktos that puts this Skyward Sword’s boss above all others. From the start, it’s pretty obvious what Link should do to take down the giant six-armed colossus Koloktos: hit it in its pulsating red heart. However, Koloktos protects its weak spot with two arms while attacking Link with the other four. So Link needs to dodge attacks and take down Koloktos’ arms with the Whip to create the opportunity to hit the boss’s heart. It’s a simple strategy until Koloktos gets angry, rises, and closes his chest with a big iron grid, impossible to be broken by Link’s attacks. As Link keeps dismembering Koloktos’ limbs, however, the boss’s swords drop on the ground. Link can grab these giant blades and use them to tear every piece of Koloktos apart.
While Skyward Sword has plenty of epic combats, Koloktos might be the funniest boss to fight over and over again. It awakens a childish satisfaction by allowing us to tear him down into pieces multiple times. What’s even better is that, while Skyward Sword’s motion controls are not always responsive, they work like wonder with the Whip, making Koloktos even more dynamic. Koloktos is a fan-favorite that perfectly uses The Legend of Zelda formula but also adds something unique to the fight, making it well-deserving of this first-place ranking.
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