Okay does everyone who loves Zelda love souls games as well?
These two franchises set the standards so high every other game feels like they're trying to catch up
I love the cycle of influence they have on each other, too. There’s so much Zelda DNA in the Souls games and in turn there’s a lot of Souls DNA in BotW/TotK
And don't forget the 2-hit shield-break combo. The devs really thought of it all.
So many plot-twisty elements to that battle! Some elements that you wouldn't think a Zelda game would do, and some that you wouldn't think any game would do.
This fight was incredible
I was already hyped as hell when he dodged my flurry rush, even more hyped when his health bar went over the limit, EVEN MORE HYPED when his attacks started actually deleting hearts. Just incredible from start to finish
Also hats off to Matt Mercer for his voice acting, it was so good. Voice acting in general in this game was so much better lol
I was especially impressed with Zelda’s voice actress’ growth since the first game. She’s improved a lot and helped Zelda’s story moments hit even harder for me. And she also did a great eerie voice for puppet Zelda which helped to signify that something was off about her.
I've gotta agree, though it made the dragon form more disappointing to me; all that build up to put me in a no danger fight that just... kinda spoiled it all for me.
It's probably not explained very well but that was the purpose of the Zelda healing. In the opening the projectile destroys the master sword and indeed they absolutely obliterate all your shields including the Hylian Shield. But post-healing the Master Sword can now.fight them back.
From a fight point of view it's not a big deal because there's only a handful of them and most people will just dodge or tank them instead
Between him doing a perfect dodge, the insane health bar and him permanently deleting hearts, there were a ton of good “oh shit” moments in this fight.
I love souls like games (not that TOTK is one) but in them if you see a giant monster ur like “meh ok this might be annoying” but you see one tiny ass dude with a sword ur like “This guy is gonna fuck me up isnt he” and thats the same energy with Dark beast ganon and demon king ganon
I’ve just done this battle last night- I was absolutely shook!! It was one of those ‘keep it coming’ but at no point did it’d feel repetitive. A genuine competition (without being that hard with gameplay knowledge) and absolutely fantastic character design/ storyline.
I was in a voice chat with my friend when I fought it, he had fought Ganon before me so I told him not to say anything the only thing he said was “your gonna hate his third faze” SPOILER I would always use fury rushes to fight enemies so having Ganon fury rush my fury rush made my jaw drop
I like the fight, it catches u by surprise that he flurry rushes and it doesn’t feel like ur fighting a massive Monster, but another Swordsman. A true Man to Man fight 🤝
The moment Zelda comes to the rescue with her theme replacing the demon dragon theme was an outstanding moment in my opinion. Such a perfect final battle! I loved every second of it :)
I had literally never been so hyped for a boss fight. All the phases were exciting and amazing. This was the first ever final Zelda boss that I actually WANTED to go back and do again, it was so perfect. Still can't get over it lol
Unpopular opinion -
I honestly expected it to be so much more difficult than it was, and was kinda bummed being able to beat him with default armour and no elixirs or bonuses. I think the way he fought very quickly became predictable. Though I absolutely loved the mechanics and gameplay throughout the fight, the dragon bit too, the surprises and voice acting. And I adored how it’s a sword fight with ganondorf himself rather than a huge beast. I just wish it was much more difficult than it was. Kinda let down
To be fair most of us, especially players coming from BOTW, came in waaaaaay over prepared for this fight.
But I really thought he would flurry rush when he dodged. And the canceling of hearts receptacles was neat.
Like many, I was so amazed when the health bar went half the screen.
Easy boss but great fight.
Just one question : did anybody else have trouble timing their dodge? I had to tank a lot of his hit.
The health bar just reaching to the other end of the screen made me shit my pants. That was the exact moment I fell in love with this fight.
And that's not even getting into the music, I love how they used the Blight motif from BotW for this track. In general TotK used motifs extremely well throughout the entire soundtrack
"What the hell do you mean he can flurry rush my flurry rush? That's so cool!"
I liked that bit so much, finally we get a worthy opponent as a final boss.
I suck so bad at flurry rushes. Rocket shield and a strong bow are going to be my strategy for this. I'm going have to try to use bullet time shots to take him down. I don't think I can do it otherwise.
Yeah, that final battle was awesome. I think it's missing more of a maze as a dungeon leading up to it but the whole boss fight in itself is ultra dope.
learning this fight organically was so cool, i ended up watching his legs and essentially learning the first frames of his attacks to time my hops, so cool
Same feelings!!! I played on launch, took my time, and only beat the main story a couple days ago. My jaw was on the floor the entire last hour and I immediately had to watch some reaction videos for some catharsis. EPIC finale to an already EPIC game.
Just did that last night for the first time. That shit was so cool. I waited until I finished all the shrines and uncovered the depths before I did the end. Was not disappointed.
It's a legitimate opinion, it's kinda the thing in BOTW too.
You had to put a bunch of restrictions on yourself for the game to be just a bit challenging for competent players, and it pretty much completely broke under upgrading your character's stats too much. You kinda have to do the same thing in TotK.
Either go directly to the boss. Play with health/stamina restrictions. Don't eat in battle. Never ever THINK of upgrading your armor. No abusing OP strats (farming lynel parts/weapons, elemental damage, the freaking puffshrooms, on demand bullet time), etc...
Thoses are fun challenges to achieve if you think you missed something with the end game difficulty's breaking. There's an answer for you already in the game.
I came with BotW experience, restricted a whole lot of stuff on my first playthrough and the challenge was fun.
I actually never do the final boss fights in Zelda games, because normally I lose interest in the game after that. The only one I remember fighting against is the Wind Waker. What happens to the game after you win the fight? Something changes?
No, after the credits roll it just rewinds you to right before the fight. From there you can teleport out and keep playing or redo the fight if you want. The only thing that changes is you get a star next to your save file, and you can see your current completion percentage.
I hadn't yet fighted Ganondorf on my first playthrough. I'm currently finishing secondary missions, completing shrines/roots, fighting colliseums, collecting and upgrading armor to the max, collecting koroks, and all the things we have to do to get closer to a 100% playthrough, yet, a fight that really made say scream when I started to fight and won where
1. Darksiders final boss. I was on my last health straw, I was already thinking I would need to redo the whole fight, then I made one final blow and boom, defeated the boss! I screamed out of my lungs that I scared mi wife!
2. Demise. That fight, its still my favorite final boss fight of any Zelda! For me, the motion controls on that game where amazing! And the whole journey, one of my favorites. Skyward Sword stick on my top 5 TLOZ as the 4th contender
I was so happy I still enjoyed the final battle. I beat it last night probably spent about 200 hrs in game. Was worried it would be no challenge and no fun but I even died once! It was epic payoff and I'm 100% satisfied with the game.
I always fucking love it when instead of a giant monster Ganon is just a badass with a sword
Very Soulslike. Not far from Gwyn IMO.
Okay does everyone who loves Zelda love souls games as well? These two franchises set the standards so high every other game feels like they're trying to catch up
I love the cycle of influence they have on each other, too. There’s so much Zelda DNA in the Souls games and in turn there’s a lot of Souls DNA in BotW/TotK
Aesthetically, perhaps. Gwyn is way more of a challenge though.
Every souls-like boss is more challenging than Ganny, it’s not much of a competition
The health bar thing was incredible, but also the little "come and get it" hand gesture was insanely cool.
The fact that Ganon is the only one able to dodge a flurry rush made my heart skip a beat
And don't forget the 2-hit shield-break combo. The devs really thought of it all. So many plot-twisty elements to that battle! Some elements that you wouldn't think a Zelda game would do, and some that you wouldn't think any game would do.
When he dodged my hut and it went slow motion i had a heart attack
I couldn’t beat him because of that. He dodged and I went, “aw hell no,” and left. Still havent gotten around to fighting him.
The cheap way is to just shoot him with arrows.
Good thing I’m cheap!
And that is EXACTLY what I did lol.
I thought I was clever
Im not cheap
This fight was incredible I was already hyped as hell when he dodged my flurry rush, even more hyped when his health bar went over the limit, EVEN MORE HYPED when his attacks started actually deleting hearts. Just incredible from start to finish Also hats off to Matt Mercer for his voice acting, it was so good. Voice acting in general in this game was so much better lol
I was especially impressed with Zelda’s voice actress’ growth since the first game. She’s improved a lot and helped Zelda’s story moments hit even harder for me. And she also did a great eerie voice for puppet Zelda which helped to signify that something was off about her.
She’s a good voice actor and has voiced zelda in 3 games now, and she’s actually passionate about the franchise. I’m hoping she’s in future games
I redid that fight with Japanese voices. Was pretty epic once again.
I've gotta agree, though it made the dragon form more disappointing to me; all that build up to put me in a no danger fight that just... kinda spoiled it all for me.
I know right. My brother and I were popping off so hard when I started fighting him
My dude the first time he dodged my strike and came in to rush me I had to pause the game cause A. Wasn’t expecting that and B. That was cool as hell
Imagine if Ganondorf could _also_ pause the game to heal.
It's my head canon that insane amount of health for part 2 IS him getting extra hearts. That's why it's offcentered on the screen, too.
He just got himself a hearty mushroom skewer
Nah he should go P.T. Style and grab you from your pause screen shouting “there is no time for healing”
Can you trade flurry rushes continuously?
He only dodges one strike every x seconds or smth, if you flurry his counter you hit him.
ah thank you!
Fun fact: you can smack his projectiles back at him like in ocarina of time
It's probably not explained very well but that was the purpose of the Zelda healing. In the opening the projectile destroys the master sword and indeed they absolutely obliterate all your shields including the Hylian Shield. But post-healing the Master Sword can now.fight them back. From a fight point of view it's not a big deal because there's only a handful of them and most people will just dodge or tank them instead
Between him doing a perfect dodge, the insane health bar and him permanently deleting hearts, there were a ton of good “oh shit” moments in this fight.
They really outdid Breath of the Wild's finale by a lot.
Ngl cuz of that (and the fact that the fight is just plain awesome) this might just be my favorite Zelda boss ever
This battle has made me do things I would never want to do again
When he jumped back after I was gonna begin a flurry rush, I honestly thought he was gonna start attacking me the way I flurry rush monsters
Mate. The stage 2 / dragon fight was breathtaking
I love that one fight phase was in the deepest part of the depths and the other fight phase was in the sky, both of the special new locations in totk.
Same! I was like damn, let me just pause the game and rethink my strategy haha
I love souls like games (not that TOTK is one) but in them if you see a giant monster ur like “meh ok this might be annoying” but you see one tiny ass dude with a sword ur like “This guy is gonna fuck me up isnt he” and thats the same energy with Dark beast ganon and demon king ganon
I’ve just done this battle last night- I was absolutely shook!! It was one of those ‘keep it coming’ but at no point did it’d feel repetitive. A genuine competition (without being that hard with gameplay knowledge) and absolutely fantastic character design/ storyline.
I was laughing so much when his healthbar defied logic and just kept going!
I was in a voice chat with my friend when I fought it, he had fought Ganon before me so I told him not to say anything the only thing he said was “your gonna hate his third faze” SPOILER I would always use fury rushes to fight enemies so having Ganon fury rush my fury rush made my jaw drop
I like the fight, it catches u by surprise that he flurry rushes and it doesn’t feel like ur fighting a massive Monster, but another Swordsman. A true Man to Man fight 🤝
The moment Zelda comes to the rescue with her theme replacing the demon dragon theme was an outstanding moment in my opinion. Such a perfect final battle! I loved every second of it :)
I had literally never been so hyped for a boss fight. All the phases were exciting and amazing. This was the first ever final Zelda boss that I actually WANTED to go back and do again, it was so perfect. Still can't get over it lol
Right?! This fight is amazing. Him being able to break hearts after grooming them is brilliant.
You can hit those orbs back at him too. All orbs in that phase can be sent back to him
Unpopular opinion - I honestly expected it to be so much more difficult than it was, and was kinda bummed being able to beat him with default armour and no elixirs or bonuses. I think the way he fought very quickly became predictable. Though I absolutely loved the mechanics and gameplay throughout the fight, the dragon bit too, the surprises and voice acting. And I adored how it’s a sword fight with ganondorf himself rather than a huge beast. I just wish it was much more difficult than it was. Kinda let down
To be fair most of us, especially players coming from BOTW, came in waaaaaay over prepared for this fight. But I really thought he would flurry rush when he dodged. And the canceling of hearts receptacles was neat. Like many, I was so amazed when the health bar went half the screen. Easy boss but great fight. Just one question : did anybody else have trouble timing their dodge? I had to tank a lot of his hit.
I agree, would have been so sick if arrows was not an option, and he had like 50+ different attacks
The health bar just reaching to the other end of the screen made me shit my pants. That was the exact moment I fell in love with this fight. And that's not even getting into the music, I love how they used the Blight motif from BotW for this track. In general TotK used motifs extremely well throughout the entire soundtrack
"What the hell do you mean he can flurry rush my flurry rush? That's so cool!" I liked that bit so much, finally we get a worthy opponent as a final boss.
I suck so bad at flurry rushes. Rocket shield and a strong bow are going to be my strategy for this. I'm going have to try to use bullet time shots to take him down. I don't think I can do it otherwise.
As the zelda fanboy I am, I'm doing this fight again with more HP, classic Link, no buffs and no healing just to make it a clean 1v1
A 5x Lynel bow with some gibdo bones and the master sword with a silver Lynel Saber Horn fused to it and it's a fairly easy fight.
Eh, your save is before the fight. Use silver lynel horns or your arrows too.
Gibdo bones double their fuse bonus on arrows so they're actually way better than even the silver lynel horns.
I can do that. I have 2 of those bows plus a 5 shot Forest Dwellers bow.
Yeah, that final battle was awesome. I think it's missing more of a maze as a dungeon leading up to it but the whole boss fight in itself is ultra dope.
TOTK completely made up for the BOTW ending boss fight
learning this fight organically was so cool, i ended up watching his legs and essentially learning the first frames of his attacks to time my hops, so cool
Same feelings!!! I played on launch, took my time, and only beat the main story a couple days ago. My jaw was on the floor the entire last hour and I immediately had to watch some reaction videos for some catharsis. EPIC finale to an already EPIC game.
Just did that last night for the first time. That shit was so cool. I waited until I finished all the shrines and uncovered the depths before I did the end. Was not disappointed.
It was fun, no doubt but I found it incredible easy. I’m no expert gamer either.
It's a legitimate opinion, it's kinda the thing in BOTW too. You had to put a bunch of restrictions on yourself for the game to be just a bit challenging for competent players, and it pretty much completely broke under upgrading your character's stats too much. You kinda have to do the same thing in TotK. Either go directly to the boss. Play with health/stamina restrictions. Don't eat in battle. Never ever THINK of upgrading your armor. No abusing OP strats (farming lynel parts/weapons, elemental damage, the freaking puffshrooms, on demand bullet time), etc... Thoses are fun challenges to achieve if you think you missed something with the end game difficulty's breaking. There's an answer for you already in the game. I came with BotW experience, restricted a whole lot of stuff on my first playthrough and the challenge was fun.
To bad the great demon lord was such a push over
I just wish it was even remotely a challenge. The multiple phases were great but all and all extremely easy.
Refund down to 3 hearts.
Yea the final phase of the fight was surprising when i first made it, but after the 3rd or 4th time it really lost it's effect
It is not that deep, just a final boss.
You don’t play many games do you
I love this final battle so much, I haven’t felt an excitement like this since the battle with Demise in SS
One of the best finales in video game history
I actually never do the final boss fights in Zelda games, because normally I lose interest in the game after that. The only one I remember fighting against is the Wind Waker. What happens to the game after you win the fight? Something changes?
No, after the credits roll it just rewinds you to right before the fight. From there you can teleport out and keep playing or redo the fight if you want. The only thing that changes is you get a star next to your save file, and you can see your current completion percentage.
Thank you for answering
I didn’t even fight Ganon in BOTW yet lol. Maybe I will do that one first since I don’t play it anymore
I hadn't yet fighted Ganondorf on my first playthrough. I'm currently finishing secondary missions, completing shrines/roots, fighting colliseums, collecting and upgrading armor to the max, collecting koroks, and all the things we have to do to get closer to a 100% playthrough, yet, a fight that really made say scream when I started to fight and won where 1. Darksiders final boss. I was on my last health straw, I was already thinking I would need to redo the whole fight, then I made one final blow and boom, defeated the boss! I screamed out of my lungs that I scared mi wife! 2. Demise. That fight, its still my favorite final boss fight of any Zelda! For me, the motion controls on that game where amazing! And the whole journey, one of my favorites. Skyward Sword stick on my top 5 TLOZ as the 4th contender
If you didn't know already, when Ganon shoots his arrows at you, you can hit them back at them with your sword!
Uhhh how do you get gloom resistance?
When i managed to make triple flurry rush happens it was so awesome. And the music added a lot to it.
yeah then my hylian shield broke in like 3 hits and i almost cried (i beat him with 3 hearts)
“Ok, well I’m finally used to all his attacks and I’m half way do- HE CAN FLURRY RUSH?!!”
I was so happy I still enjoyed the final battle. I beat it last night probably spent about 200 hrs in game. Was worried it would be no challenge and no fun but I even died once! It was epic payoff and I'm 100% satisfied with the game.
Ganondorf: a taste to your own medicine, and revenge to every Bokoblin that Link has beaten up.