// KOTAKU — GAMING
The Legend Of Zelda: Ocarina Of Time Bosses, Ranked From Worst To Best
Each of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time’s dungeons is punctuated with a boss, often one that requires you to use whatever item you got in that temple and show the game what you’ve learned. Going back to them 28 years after the game first came out does reveal that a lot of them are pretty simple fights, but even if they aren’t mechanically demanding, they still each have a menacing vibe that reminds you that, despite the childlike wonder of the Zelda universe, things are dire in the kingdom of Hyrule. We decided to rank them from worst to best, and included a couple of the game’s memorable mini-bosses for good measure.
All you ever really hear about Dodongo before meeting him is that he likes to eat, so I guess it makes sense that he wouldn’t even think twice about eating an explosive over and over. A 3D throwback to a boss from the original Legend of Zelda, he has a one-track mind: He’s a hungry boy who indiscriminately sucks up whatever’s in front of him. Hope he likes gunpowder. You’re telling me the Gorons couldn’t figure out how to beat this guy? Y’all sell these things in packs of five. — Kenneth Shepard
This is my personal least-favorite boss. I have no idea what its backstory is. It’s visually unimpressive, and trivially easy to defeat in both the original and the remake. Literally just a little ball. Who cares? —Rebekah Valentine
As the first boss in Ocarina of Time (and another boss who first appeared in the original LoZ), Gohma is pretty unremarkable compared to the monsters Link will face as the game goes on, but at least he’s a big ol’ creepy crawly that looks like it could have infected a giant tree god and it has a giant red eye that’s just begging to get shot. Maybe put on a goggle next time you hear Link’s little boots stomping around, my dude. — Kenneth Shepard
Like most things inside Jabu-Jabu, Bariande is kinda gross to look at. It’s looks like a growth you’d see in a medical textbook growing on the inside of someone who’s about to be possessed by a fungus or virus, and defeating it basically requires Link to be a living, tunic-wearing, sword-swinging, boomerang-throwing dose of Pepto-Bismol. All its attacks look like radioactive bodily fluid being slung Link’s way, and I simply don’t like to look at it, so clearly, we must kill it. — Kenneth Shepard
Now we’re talkin’! I love the pacing of this fight. Entering the room, nothing. Just an ominous mist. Then, as you tentatively explore, a hand rips its way out of the ground. You approach to fight, only for it to grab you and hold you still while the actual monster, a gruesome death blob creature, lurches toward you for an attack. It’s horrifying! Best part, though: you get to fight it a second time as adult Link, this time knowing what’s coming, and absolutely thrash it. — Rebekah Valentine
The boss fight with Volvagia, who first appeared in Zelda 2, is a fiery game of whack-a-mole with a dragon that has luxurious locks and performs some of the fiercest hairography in all of Hyrule. Even as it’s dying, it swerves and slides around in the air like it’s in the club dancing to a sick beat. A slay. — Kenneth Shepard
It may not be top of this list, but it’s at the top of my list for being absolutely effed up. This is seemingly the body of someone the Sheikah tortured and killed, its hands chopped off and its head apparently gone too, replaced by a freaky eye thing. There’s so much going on in this fight. You need the magic lens(es) to even see what’s going on, arrows to shoot down the hands when they attack, and the hover boots to keep your footing steady as Bongo Bongo bongos the floor to the rhythm of the music. Stressful, chaotic, and disturbing, this is the perfect fight after the grim connotations of Bottom of the Well and Shadow Temple. — Rebekah Valentine
The sorcerer sisters Kotake and Koume are some of the only bosses Link fights in Ocarina of Time that aren’t merely monsters. By the time you actually face them and their contrasting fire and ic