Big Baddies Breakdown: Arrghus (The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past)

In Big Baddies Breakdown, Wolfman Jew analyzes all sorts of boss fights across the games industry. The catch: one boss per game. Many of these are brilliant, some of them poor. Several show technical polish, while others tell stories through their fights. But all are worthy of discussion.

If we look at the various bosses of Nintendo, one of the most boss-friendly companies in the gaming business, the bad guys of The Legend of Zelda stand out. The Zelda games consistently deal out top tier fights against dragons, beasts, knights, and wizards. Their monsters are notorious and iconic, enough for some to be famous in their own right.

It wasn’t initially that way, however. The first Legend of Zelda for NES had bosses that were big and reasonably imposing, but not grand; they even lacked unique fight music. Zelda II: The Adventure of Link did a bit better on that front, but it was so painfully difficult that many players simply didn’t see any of them at all.

Part of the problem was just the limitations of the NES. Gleeok was the most visually striking of the first game, and even it couldn’t compare to the original art.

It took until A Link to the Past, the 1991 prequel for the Super Nintendo, for the series to really get a groove on boss fights. The bosses, bigger and more imposing, were part of a loose theme of “expansion,” building up as much of the original game’s template as possible. Hyrule was larger, weirder, and more complex than before – it even added a second Hyrule for good measure. The Dark World roughly doubled the game’s space and allowed Nintendo to add a whopping twelve dungeons in total, a far cry from not just the eight in Zelda 1, but even every Zelda game since.

These dungeons were glorious things, damp and mysterious and bursting with ideas. They were more directed and organized than the ones in the first two Zeldas, which largely dropped you into a spooky space you had to poke around. Each of these new ones had a distinct color palette and architecture, all made to craft distinct stories of starting out, figuring out each one’s unique gimmick, and getting more control of the space before beating the boss as a final test.

The leap in ambition (and hardware) was obvious. The cut up Skull Woods and its boss, Mothula, were far more dramatic from concept to execution than what Nintendo could’ve done in 1986. Third image taken from BS The Legend of Zelda: Ancient Stone Tablets, a sort of remake and sequel from 1997.

That sense of “control” came partially through the game’s auxiliary items. Link finding gear in each dungeon had been established in the first Zelda game, and the appeal – nabbing some lost thing in a dank cave that becomes central to your quest – only got greater in the third. Bows, hammers, secret books of magic, flaming staffs; potential coursed through every one. The items in Zelda 1 were also powerful, but less exciting: some were extremely situational, others hard to use, and much of their appeal was in having just anything that could make Hyrule just a bit easier. The items in A Link to the Past are sorely needed as well, but their sprites crackle and shine on the screen. They look more imposing with each use. Wielding them is more comfortable, easy, and fun. And they’re perfect for taking down bosses.

A Link to the Past developed a notable formula for dungeons, one The Legend of Zelda has mostly adhered to in the decades since and one that’s spread to plenty of other games. Each dungeon was organized around a specific kind of level design, one that’d probably influence how it looked and sounded. It’d force Link to solve specific kinds of puzzles and challenges, and at the right moment, he’d stumble upon a powerful item. Some would be a one-button solution to a tougher earlier puzzle, and the game would use them as an excuse to make even more complicated challenges. Other times, it wasn’t, and the item was just powerful or neat in some way, but they became central to the experience.

Also central, naturally, was the boss fight, the capper on each escapade. And if we think of bosses as the final tests of their dungeon, well, surely whatever item it bestows upon Link would need to be important there, right?

While you don’t need the Bow to fight the Armos Knights, it’s quite the challenge to fight them without it.

For the most part, that’s exactly what A Link to the Past did; its bosses were tough challenges and monstrous creatures, but they were also often part of this overarching puzzle. The Helmasaur King could only be felled by bombs or the Hammer, and only one item’s endlessly reusable and found in the Palace of Darkness. Mothula also didn’t require the weapon you find in Skull Woods, but using the Fire Rod to roast it is both satisfying and efficient. And that Fire Rod, and its Ice Rod counterpart? Those were both integral to the fight against the intimidating Trinexx… who, admittedly, cheats, since you had to get those items well before entering Turtle Rock.

The game didn’t aggressively follow this formula. Most bosses, like Helmasaur and Mothula, had alternate (if harder) ways of being injured. Plus, several dungeons’ items weren’t even tools or weapons to realistically use against an enemy. In those cases – and in cases where a straight sword fight would be more fun – Link simply dueled and slashed at the boss. Most famous is the fight against Agahnim at the end of the game’s Light World act, where Link played a round of tennis with his opponent’s magic spells. That fight is iconic in its own right, as is the similar battle against the titanic worm Moldorm. I had considered writing about both.

But to me, this “dungeon to item to boss” system is the most interesting invention of the game’s approach to the Zelda design. It’s a fascinating way to present items that are important for fighting, exploring, or experimenting, and it’s a way to tie in everything you do in these dungeons. And nowhere in A Link to the Past is this design philosophy on better display than in the deep and dismal Swamp Palace.

This art of the Palace’s entrance doesn’t show the interior, but it does get at how more quiet and lightly ominous it is.

The sixth dungeon is a bit of a break for Link. By this point, he’s spent a lot of time in the Dark World, where enemies are far tougher and aid is nowhere to be found. The Swamp Palace is the second of its dungeon, but it’s relatively – relatively – easier. It’s full of hollowed out gaps, ones you turn into traversable waterways with an opening of a nearby sluice. So it’s a labyrinth more about exploration than fighting, and the item you get is perfect for that: the Hookshot.

Even in a series known for iconic weapons, the Hookshot is on its own level. The idea, a high fantasy grappling gun, has immediate appeal. And there have always been great uses for it; Link can use it to rocket all the way to certain far off places, but he can also pull light items to him. This system, a fast-acting move that sends something to somewhere in a flash, is filled with potential. And when it first appeared, right here in A Link to the Past, it felt revelatory.

It wouldn’t be right for the game to give players a tool this cool and not find a way to incorporate it into a boss fight, and that’s where the floating, one-eyed jellyfish Arrghus comes in. Design wise, it’s a fairly good monster; a bit low key, but still distinctly alien. The game had previously emphasized large people or beasts or serpents as its bosses, and this low key Lovecraftian sea monster thing shakes things up. You can really imagine an urban legend about something like this just hiding and mutating in a sewer, even sewers that aren’t as fantastical and exciting as the Swamp Palace. And most importantly, it gives you a clear target in its giant eye… at least, a target that can’t quite be seen or hit.

There’s a sort of a story around it. You find this item, use it in the dungeon, use it on the boss, and even the playing field.

The polyps around Arrghus (they look like clouds or rocks, but they’re actually smaller lifeforms, which makes the boss all the more abnormal) protect its eye from Link’s violent slashes. They make up a shield, but it just so happens that each one is lighter than Link. So you pull each one out with the Hookshot, cut it apart, and repeat the process until Arrghus and its lovely eye are ready for the brutalizing. The fight turns into a process of keeping away from Arrghus – no small task given the room’s small size – opening it up, and only then risking coming in for the kill. Appropriately for a doohickey that covers ground and brings things together, it’s about managing distance.

Arrghus does have moves unrelated to this, mainly firing lasers and fire. But that’s not what people remember about it; they remember separating and culling its family with the Hookshot, the coolest tool in Hyrule. In a way, it and the Swamp Palace both seem to exist partially as a way to sell the grappling gun as a whole. A device that could be (and often has been) gimmicky was immediately integral to everything you do.

This design trope, of turning dungeons into locks and their items the key, was reused for almost every Zelda game since, and it’ll likely remain on the minds of Nintendo’s various programmers. Two years later, Link’s Awakening would adhere to this even more aggressively; almost all bosses could only be beaten by their specific weapon. And that stayed strong. It arguably became overused, and it was likely one of the tropes Nintendo’s Zelda team looked to jettison first when they began reinventing the series in Breath of the Wild.

Though while it missed out on that revelatory title, the Hookshot has otherwise stayed a beloved fixture of Link’s toolset.

Overused or not, it’s undeniably a great loop. For any game that heavily involves either dungeons or collecting gear, the practice ties together everything in the maze: puzzles, exploration, combat, even new forms of movement in some cases. And the Hookshot is perfect for it. The push and pull of it has a satisfying, immediate reaction. It’s so… cool, and from a company that’s rarely interested in being cool.

As for Arrghus itself, it was reused thrice: in Majora’s Mask, Tri Force Heroes, and A Link to the Past’s sort of remake, sort of sequel A Link Between Worlds. The former fight doesn’t incorporate the Hookshot, mostly other methods of fighting from a distance as you try to kill its supportive blobs. But all three fights are memorable, despite the fact that the monster isn’t truly massive or overbearing. Its simple, chill weirdness makes it easy to remember. It’s a good kind of enemy for this kind of design philosophy; the weapon used to fell it dominates it in the consciousness of players, not just on the battlefield. It doesn’t take up room – or, rather, it only takes up room physically. So here’s to Arrghus, the best Hookshot salesman a series can have.