Skyward Sword HD harkens back to the good ol’ dungeon days of the Legend of Zelda series. But unlike BOTW, SSHD dictates the course of play; thus, Skyview Temple, where Link goes to look for the perpetually missing Zelda, is perforce the first dungeon you’ll tackle.
Dungeon Overview
Like all Zelda dungeons, Skyview Temple is a combination of puzzle-solving and fighting that requires quick thinking and manual dexterity. The puzzle sections allow time to think more thoughtfully and practice more safely, so that by the time one gets to the serious business of fighting, the thinking is a little faster and the manos, one hopes, a little more dexterous.
Truth be told, Skyview Temple doesn’t immediately feel like a dungeon. No dank and gloomy jail cells, dangling manacles on the walls, or moaning inmates. And shoot, it’s a temple, right? Dungeon sounds like a contradiction in terms! But dungeon it is, and you won’t go far before you’re attacked by Keese and Deku Babas.
Zelder Tip #1: Before entering the temple, collect a bug net from Beedle’s shop – it can reach items other than bugs you might otherwise not be able to. In addition, ensure your shield is at full-health and have a potion or two for good measure.
Once you’ve eliminated the immediate threats upon entry, it’s time to survey your environs. There are leafy vines to be climbed (and spider-like creatures called Walltulas on the vines to be avoided or killed first). There are sentry eyes in the walls that watch as you move your sword to and fro, which proves useful to dizzy the eyes. (Demelza used the existence of these eyes to chide Itzal for the way he uses the Switch camera in way that make her seasick; Itzal snapped something inappropriate for print and took another drink.) There are switches to be discovered and tripped. A dungeon map to be found. Keys, small and large, to be earned to unlock doors. Water levels to be raised and lowered. Legend of Zelda tunes and chimes that signal when you’ve done something correctly (like open a door) to be sighed over nostalgically.
And, of course, enemies to be fought along the way.
By this point, you’ve mastered the art of slaying a Deku Baba and swatting Keese with your sword. The Walltulas can be taken out with a slingshot. Skyview’s other notable enemies include the larger, meaner Walltula relative, the Skulltula, which swings from the ceiling; the Staldra, a three-headed snake thing; and a skeletal, pirate-like sub-boss called a Stalfos.
Charmingly, the dungeon also features more balancing on tightropes to reach Bokoblins in need of trouncing. (Itzal wants to point out, again, the difficulty with the Joy-Con controls for balancing on these ropes.) But hey, the Bokoblins are much better at balancing than we are; why not let them tippy-toe on that rope over to us, so that we can push them off at the last minute with a well-timed sword strike?
But, despite all these baddies, you are not without resources. You have Fi, after all, who offers helpful if depressing advice about your chances of survival.
There are also tablets here, like elsewhere in your journeys, with pithy clues.
And, once you defeat the Stalfos in piece-o’-cake fashion (Itzal: I only died once!), you’re rewarded with yet another companion, a flying Beetle that operates like a drone (Itzal: And steers like a pig!). In addition to its utility as a scout to see overhead and around corners, the Beetle can also cut through ropes, spider silk strands, or Deku stalks.
In fact, at one point Demelza scribbled “OR JUST USE THE BEETLE INSTEAD!!” in the margins of the still-useful, if occasionally still-useless, ten-year-old guidebook we’d used for the Wii version of Skyward Sword. (The guidebook would have had us arm the slingshot, wasting precious Deku seeds, to cut down a fern we needed to swing around like Tarzan.)
We went on to defeat the Staldra (the aforementioned hydra-like serpentine creature, not to be confused with the Stalfos – honestly, get some different-sounding names, Nintendo folks!) and eventually found our way through a series of rooms, chests, and traps, ultimately securing a good-ole dungeon key.
Zelder Tip #2: If you whack aimlessly at a Skulltula, it will likely swing ’round and whack YOU. Try instead to spin it around with a horizontal sword strike, then jab at its soft underbelly.
Zelder Tip #3: You must hit all three of Staldra’s heads at the same time, or pretty close to it; otherwise they grow back quickly. If you’re lucky enough to have all three Staldra heads lined up in a row, a single strike can do the trick.
Zelder Tip #4: Pay attention to the way the Stalfos raises its arms: it’s a clue, like the Deku Baba’s mouth. If the arms are poised horizontally, a horizontal sword strike is called for. If the arms are raised vertically, go with a vertical strike. If there’s one arm up and one arm down, try a diagonal sword strike. And if the Stalfos’s arms are crossed against its chest…um, run away. You can’t hurt it when its arms are crossed. (Helpful shouting saved Itzal in this battle, as it’s difficult to ascertain horizontal and vertical when running away in terror.)
Finally, we arrived at the Final Door.
Intermission
After a hasty consultation of the (occasionally maligned) guidebook, we determined it prudent to save our game before continuing through the Final Door and to return to Skyloft to shore up our shield. Naturally, we Zelders also needed some shoring up. And since it was Sunday, which simply calls for brunch, and brunch in turn calls for a cocktail, and a brunch cocktail calls for bubbles, we whipped up a Bellini of fresh peaches and Prosecco. You can find this simplest of recipes here.
And now, back to the show…down
After fitting a Tetris-like key into the Final Door’s look, you face an odd enemy. And we don’t mean odd in typical dungeon boss fashion: he’s not an eight-headed gargoyle crossed with a lava spewing flying dragon or similar. Rather, what’s odd about this boss is, in fact, his seeming normality.
He’s a neatly if flashily dressed humanoid, with the requisite number of appendages, but no more.
True, he looks more like Lucius Malfoy than the boy next door; he sports a really long tongue (gross, btw); and he’s a self-proclaimed Demon Lord. Lord Ghirahim, first of the name. Still.
The key to defeating Ghirahim – we use the word “key” loosely, since that implies we held and brandished the key artfully, when it’s more like it fell happenstance into our hand a couple of times—ahem, the key to defeating Ghirahim is to not “telegraph” your moves. Let him be surprised! This was not a problem; we are always surprised by our own moves and if we are telegraphing, it is entirely without intent. We know only that there came a point when the Demon Lord stuck out his creepily long tongue at us and that signaled the second stage of the battle, in which he flicked darts at us. We shield-bashed the darts back….after a fashion….(Itzal: I only died once!)…until eventually we wore Ghirahim down or, more likely, we bored him and he decided to leave.
Ever so kindly, the Demon Lord left behind a new heart container, which we snapped up before exiting the arena to explore Skyview Spring. There, atop a platform, we found a curious symbol (okay, it was no doubt a Triforce) which, when hit with a Skyward Strike, generated a new, Ruby piece of Ancient Tablet.
Zelder Tip 5: There’s a Goddess Cube behind the altar; activate it before striking the altar symbol, lest you forget it in your haste to return to Skyloft to see what new adventure the latest piece of tablet opens (spoiler alert: It’s Eldin!).