Skyward Sword Bosses: Every Fight In Order And What Each One Tests

Skyward Sword runs thirteen boss fights against eight opponents, and it repeats three of them on purpose. Once you notice what the game is doing, the fights stop being a list to memorise: a dungeon hands Link a tool, the dungeon teaches him to use it on furniture, and the boss at the end is the exam. Four of the six dungeon bosses work exactly that way. The two that do not are both Ghirahim, who never tests a tool because he is always testing the sword, and the fights outside the dungeons test things a dungeon cannot: a bird, a hill, and a shield.

The exam pattern, dungeon by dungeon

Our items guide lists where each of those tools is collected, and the pattern is worth trusting when a fight stalls: if you are losing to a dungeon boss, the answer is almost always the thing you picked up two rooms ago rather than a better sword.

The four that are exams on the new tool

Scaldera rolls down the slope at you in the Earth Temple and spits fire, and the fight is a retreat with one job: when the rolling stops and the mouth opens, put a bomb in it. Keep moving side to side while it burns down, then close the distance and hit the eye. Moldarach is a scorpion with its weak points worn on the outside, one red eye on each pincer, and it buries itself when hurt. The Gust Bellows blow the sand off, which is the whole reason the Mining Facility hands them over, and the shield covers the rush it makes between dives. It shows up a second time at the Shipyard, shorter and meaner, with the same answer.

Koloktos is the one people remember. It is a six armed idol that the Whip disarms literally: pull the arms off, which leaves the red core in its chest exposed, and cut the core before it rebuilds itself. Backstep out of the sweeps rather than trying to block them. Tentalus is the Sandship's tenant and the fight runs in two halves, tentacles first and head second. A charged Skyward Strike cuts the tentacles down, and the eye at the end of the run takes an arrow, which is where the Bow found upstairs earns its keep.

Ghirahim, three times, always about the sword

Ghirahim is the reason people either love or hate this game's combat, because he is the one enemy who reads the direction of your swing and answers it. In the Skyview Temple fight he holds a hand up to catch the blade, so the swing has to come from the side his hand is not on, and he will take the sword off you if you are slow about it. If he teleports behind you, a spin attack is faster than turning around. In the Fire Sanctuary he adds floating daggers that block anything aimed through them, so they get broken first, and his disarmed moments are when a jump attack pays.

The third fight, at the end of the game, is three stages in one. First he has to be pushed off the edge of the platform, and his hands glow when he is close to it. Then come the stabs after each knockdown and a sword beam that has to be sent back along the line it came in on. Last he brings out a greatsword, and the fight ends when that breaks. He is a sword spirit himself, which is the joke the whole story is building, and our page on Fi has the other half of it.

The Imprisoned, three times, and the hill it climbs

The three Sealed Grounds fights are not really boss fights. They are a chase with a clock: a sealed thing is walking up a spiral pit toward the temple at the top, and it wins by arriving. Each round is the same job with worse terms. Take the toes out from under it, which a spin attack does to all of them at once, and when it drops, climb on the head and drive the pillar back in with upward slashes.

The second round gives it arms to swat with and gives you Groose, who starts lobbing bombs from the rim to stun it, which makes this the round where somebody else does part of the work for you. The third round is the awkward one: it walks faster, it flies once the seal on its back has been struck three times, and Groose is out of bombs, so the catapult he has built is how you get up to it. Ride the whirlwinds around the pit, let the catapult put you on its head, and finish with three vertical slices.

Two fights that belong to nothing else

Bilocyte is the parasite riding Levias in the Thunderhead, and it is the one boss fought from the back of a Loftwing. The spiral charge is the attack, the eyeballs are the target, and the projectiles it throws can be knocked back into it. Demise closes the game, and no dungeon item touches him, which is why he has a page of his own: see how to beat Demise for both phases and the lightning exchange.

What the fights pay

Only the six dungeon bosses hand over a Heart Container, one each. The Sealed Grounds rounds, Bilocyte and Demise pay nothing, which is how the health arithmetic ends up where it does: six hearts to start, six from the dungeons, and six more from the 24 pieces on our Heart Pieces page, for eighteen, with the last two carried in the Adventure Pouch as Life Medals. If you want the health bar full before the last fight, the pieces are the only part of that you control.

The Lightning Round replays all of it

Lanayru, the Thunder Dragon, runs a boss rush at Lanayru Gorge once he has been cured, and it is the best reward table in the game. You choose the first opponent and the rest come at random, and the catch is the loadout: each fight gives Link the gear he had when that boss was new, with no pouch items, though the shield he is carrying now comes along and any damage done to it carries over between fights, as does his health. Prizes stack up as you go and are claimed between fights, so a loss wipes what you have not collected. A Heart Piece lands on the fourth win, and the Hylian Shield arrives on the eighth, with 2,000 rupees on the ninth for anyone still standing. Our enemies page covers the ordinary monsters between here and there, and the walkthrough has the order the game asks for these fights in the first place.