The dungeons get trickier to find and the enemies get harder as LInk completes the first quest.
Level 5 – This is the first dungeon that’s slightly hard to find1. An old man in Level 4 points Link to the waterfall, where an old woman will tell him how to navigate the Lost Hills. The reward for getting the magic sword now is that blue darknuts and gibdos, which make their first appearance in this dungeon, are much easier to deal with. Pols voices also make their first appearance, but the bow is the way to deal with them. The dungeon’s treasure is the recorder, which would go on to star in Super Mario Bros. 3 as the warp whistle. It has a similar function here, but first it’s also needed to beat the dungeon boss, a digdogger, which shrivels at its sound and then gets finished off with sword attacks.
Level 6 – Okay, pancake wizzrobes. I actually don’t remember hating them so much from the last time I played the game2, but they’re terrible. The red ones aren’t so bad, but killing them means dodging the blue ones which zip all over the place and shoot you and they’re just a bloody nightmare. And disappointingly, the magic wand doesn’t work against them; 8-bit wizard duels would have been awesome. It’s pretty common in this game for dungeons to be harder than the boss at the end, and here’s a prime example: the gohma dies in one hit from an arrow.
Level 7 – Okay, the hardest thing about this dungeon is finding the bloody place. The only hint is the Old Man Hint from the previous dungeon, “There are secrets where fairies don’t live.” That’s 98% of the map, guy. Narrow it down a little. The Japanese text mentions a pond, which should click once you find the empty fairy pond in the forest, bringing up the “try everything” reflex until the recorder makes the pond drain and the dungeon entrance appear. Once inside, the second hardest thing about the dungeon is figuring out what the grumbly goriya wants. I had a Nintendo Power subscription back in the day, and it explained that he wants food which you have in the form of bait, so I never had any problem with it, but in hindsight… yeah, it’s not clear. Another aquamentus is the boss, and with the magic sword it’s even more of a joke. On the down side, the only item Link gets here is the red candle, which is fairly worthless, except…
Level 8 – The hint for the location of this dungeon – which has to be sought out in the overworld3 – is “Secret is in the tree at the dead end.” So the red candle can make the sequence where Link makes Smokey Bear very, very displeased a little less annoying until you figure out which tree to burn. It’s obvious once you know, but until then… Level 8’s mostly a throwback to level 5; darknuts, gibdos, and pols voices all make their return. The book of magic further renders the red candle useless, and the magic key greatly simplifies Link’s life. The final boss before Death Mountain is a four-headed gleeok, which is a great way to cap off the “gather the Triforce of Wisdom” phase of the adventure.
Level 9 – “Spectacle Rock is an entrance to death.” That one’s surprisingly clear, given the last two, although I’m not sure the term “Spectacle Rock” is ever used anywhere else, so you’re left to connect the twin rocks with a pair of glasses.
But here’s a thing. I don’t like to leave dungeon rooms unexplored. Even if a room serves no purpose than to trick you, make you fight a dozen blue wizzrobes before opening a staircase that dumps you back at the start of the dungeon with all the enemies respawned, it bugs me to not visit it4. So rather than taking an expedient path that still gets me all the items, I went exploring. The red ring is a boon, because it means wizzrobes don’t hurt as bad anymore. Since I don’t use the bow much, silver arrows are pretty much only useful because you need them to win. There are two new enemies: annoyingly fast lanmolas and patras with their clouds. Plus, of course, wizzrobes return to protect Ganon. Ganon is fairly simple once you recognize the figure eight pattern. It only takes one silver arrow to finish him off, and then Link can claim the Triforce of Power and rescue Zelda.
“Thanks Link, you’re the hero of Hyrule.
“Finally, peace returns to Hyrule.
“This ends the story.”
Next: Another quest will start from here.