The key to defeating Stagnox is the Whirlwind, the item acquired during Link’s trek through the Forest Temple.

As soon as Link enters the boss chamber, Stagnox will dramatically fly down from the open ceiling and land menacingly in front of Link. Its backside produces poison gas, and its front side is indestructible – for now. Of course, underneath that poison gas on its backside is a tender and vulnerable area, so your goal is to get behind Stagnox as quickly as you can so you can tear up his back with your sword. If you pause Link’s movements for a moment, Stagnox will stop to perform an attack. Take that chance to run around and approach its backside.

Using your Whirlwind, send a cyclone to blow away the poison gas. That will leave Stagnox’s backside completely open to attack; then, with fast taps, slash his backside as much as you can. You’ll need to repeat this process until Stagnox becomes fed up with fighting on the ground and flies up into the air – two to three rounds should do it.

With Stagnox in the air, the real fight begins. He’ll send down three bug larvae; whack them with your sword to curl them up into their spiky bomb ball form. Leave them resting until Stagnox decides to swoop down for an attack; at that moment, use your Whirlwind to send the larvae flying at Stagnox.

If you successfully hit Stagnox in mid-flight, it will flip over, exposing its purple backside once again. Slash it up until Stagnox recovers, and repeat the process until Stagnox falls. Your reward at the end of the fight is great: A heart container inside of a large chest, and the release of the first Force Gem.

Fraaz’s weaknesses are easily exposed with the Boomerang – the item obtained within the Snow Temple.

Fraaz is a strange creature born from the fire and ice torches within the Snow Temple; a short cutscene will show you how he forms himself from the fire and ice just before Link’s relative peace ends. To start off, one element will take dominance – he will either be fire or ice. Hit him with a little something from whatever element is the oppose of his dominant element; if he is fire, hit him with ice. If he is ice, hit him with fire. Don’t let him blow up too large, or else he’ll spit an attack at you – either freezing or burning Link. Once he’s been hit hit with his opposing element he will be dazed, allowing you time to slash him up.

After a bunch of hits, Fraaz will split into his two child elements, who will run around invulnerable to your attacks. It is up to you to determine which mini-Fraaz is which element and hit them with their opposing element. If you hit one of them with the wrong element, they will attack you – which would let you know their element in any case if you didn’t know before. If you destroy one, but wait too long to destroy the other, the remaining mini-Fraaz will revive its cohort! Once you hit them both, they will combine back into the original Fraaz.

Of course, Fraaz isn’t content with his sticky situation, so he’ll destroy the two torches in the room! This would be meaningful if he didn’t shoot those elements out of his mouth; whatever element becomes dominant, just wait for Fraaz to grow larger and larger until he lets loose. Wherever his attack hits will form a small flame of that element. You can use that flame in place of the torch to hit Fraaz with when he changes elements. Take note that he may take several hits from a torch flame depending on his size – if he’s blown up, it may take two or three hits to bring him down to size. Once you’ve got him extinguished, slash him up as you did before.

He’ll eventually split once again, but without the torches in the room this phase can become quite difficult. Wait for each mini-Fraaz to launch its attack, keeping close track of which is which element, then quickly use the flames from their attacks to cut them down. Although it sounds easy in premise, they move around a lot and most of the difficulty lies in keeping track of which one is which.

Eventually you’ll have them down, and they’ll combine into Fraaz’s final phase. In his final phase, Fraaz can shoot seven fireballs at you at a time, so be careful and dodge them! Follow the same strategy you did during his second phase; use the residual flames from his attacks to cut him down to size. After a few more good slashes, Fraaz will fall, releasing the Snow Temple of evil.

Phytops will only fall so long as you’ve got the Whip – the item obtained during Link’s adventures in the Ocean Temple.

As you enter Phytop’s chamber, the door will shut behind you and you’ll need to use your Whip to climb up to the platform upon which you’ll face this menace. As you climb, Phytops will drop poison liquid from above, and his barbed tentacles will block your way. To remove the tentacles, use your Whip to grab a thorn and toss it at the eye on the tentacle. Continue climbing, and repeat this process for a second tentacle. After that, you’ll reach a relative “safe zone” where you can break some pots and restore any health you might have lost. A propeller will also be there. When you’re ready, ride it up to the platform to face Phytops for real.

Phytops will awaken and begin attacking with purple acid from the bulbs on its head, and will also block you from moving around the area with two giant tentacles. Luckily for you, you can remove thorns from these tentacles and throw them at Phytops’s head – throw some thorns at it to reveal a single large eye right in the middle of its head. After you remove a thorn from a tentacle, Phytops will retract that tentacle, so make sure to hit it in the right spot each time. Once exposed fully, hit its eye with a thorn. Phytops will scream and faint – giving Link access to his precious eye.

While Phytops is down, hit its eye with your sword as many times as you can before he snaps out of it. As soon as he does, he’ll pull out four tentacles – two more than before – and begin whacking you with two of them. Avoid these harsh attacks if you can – after they end, the process from before repeats. Grab the thorns from its tentacles and throw it into its eye, then slash the eye up when given the chance.

Phytops will again try to beat you with two menacing tentacles; avoid their attacks once more. Avoid these, and you’ll find Phytops return with four tentacles yet again – but now you must reveal its eye while the tentacles are attacking you! Avoid taking massive damage here and just keep throwing thorns to reveal its eye in the same way you did before. Slash the eye up again, and he’ll faint just like before. Slash Phytops’s eye with your sword as much as you can, and he’ll sink back down to repeat the process. After this last repeat, Phytops should no longer be able to handle the damage – he will fall and dissolve, leaving behind a blue Force Gem.

Cragma is vulnerable only if you use the Bow and Arrow throughout the entire battle. The Bow and Arrow is obtained during Link’s trek through the Fire Temple.

When Link first enters the boss chamber, Cragma will rise from the lava and scream ferociously at you. Gold spots around his body will glow as he prepares to attack – especially when he raises his arm. As he raises his arm to pound Link into oblivion, look for a glowing golden spot on Cragma’s lower belly, just above the lava. Hit it with an arrow – this will cause Cragma to scream with rage and pound down on the platform with both fists.

Luckily, that pounding will cause a very large boulder to fall from the ceiling, along with an abundance of smaller boulders. These boulders will crash to the ground, breaking and leaving behind tons of extra arrows and hearts. When he begins attacking again, make sure he pounds down on that boulder. He’ll flatten it into a blue disc, which you can then place on either one of the inactive lava spouts northeast of the platform. You can then hop across the lava and onto a cart, which will begin circling around the room.

This gives you ample chances to fire arrows at golden spots around Cragma’s body. Fire at all of them – make sure to break every single one as you spiral upward with the cart, including the ones on the palms of Cragma’s hands. The cart will continue to wheel its way around the room, climbing higher and higher. By the time it reaches Cragma’s head, you should have broken every gold spot, giving you access to his vulnerable eye. Fire an arrow right into Cragma’s eye as soon as you can, and he will topple over in pain, exposing a tender area at the top of his head. The cart will toss you off at the platform, and you can slash away at Cragma’s head to do some serious damage.

Repeat the entire process – Cragma’s attacks won’t change, and by now you’ll probably be in the rhythm of avoiding his fist smashes. Fire into that initial golden spot once again, and make him flatten the large boulder when he makes it come tumbling down. Use the resulting blue disc to make your way onto the cart at the right edge of the room, and start circling around him, disposing of all his gold spots. He’ll rotate a bit more this time, and show you both of his palms at once; take them out quickly when this happens, or else he’ll grab the cart and throw it back down to the bottom of the room. Luckily, even if this happens, none of his gold spots will return.

Get him in the eye again, and he’ll topple over – give him one last good round of hits, and Cragma will be no more. He’ll dissolve in a puff of smoke, leaving behind nothing but a red Force Gem.

No weapon but your sword is required to best Byrne, but Zelda’s help is absolutely necessary. When the battle begins, Byrne will jump around the pillars surrounding the caged arena. He’ll occasionally fire white beams at you with his gauntlet; if you simply run around the circle of the arena, none of these attacks should hit you; in addition, they can’t harm Zelda at all, so you can use Zelda as a shield against them.

Byrne will then try to use a targeted attack in which he locks on to either Link or Zelda and launches his gauntlet at them. Byrne’s gauntlet is connected to him by a chain so he can drag back his enemies; this makes it disadvantageous for him if he misses an attack. If Zelda gets hit, you’ll have to slash at the gauntlet to free her; and it will take away a full heart if Link is hit. If both parties avoid this attack, Byrne’s gauntlet will get stuck in the ground. Navigate Zelda to the stuck gauntlet once this happens, and she’ll tug on it until Byrne comes crashing down to the floor.

That will be your chance to slash Byrne up before he rises again and takes to the pillars. Repeat the process – he’ll start firing white beams at you once again. He’ll also have an extra attack this time – a white ball of energy. If this hits Zelda, she’ll become stunned and unable to dodge Byrne’s gauntlet attack, so make sure she avoids this ball of energy.

Byrne’s gauntlet will become much more accurate during this second round; make sure both Zelda and Link and constantly moving in order to avoid being targeted. Once you’ve got his gauntlet stuck in the ground again, get Zelda to pull him down for some quality slashing.

Byrne will now be relegated to the ground. He’ll start sidestepping Link and Zelda; approach him from the front and slash him with your sword. These attack will do no damage, but will cause Byrne to become frustrated. After several hits, Byrne will begin to charge up a thrust attack with his gauntlet; this is your change to attack him with Zelda. Byrne will thrust across the arena to Link; position Zelda so that she is at some point between Byrne and Link, and the two will hit and engage in a locked battle. This will give you a change to slash Byrne up from behind.

Once you do, the process will repeat. He doesn’t get any more difficult, so get him locked in a stance with Zelda once again, slash him up on the back, and Byrne will fall.

When you first enter the boss chamber, all you’ll see is a barren room full of sand – with a giant skull in the center of this massive sand pit. Walk toward the skull, and a cutscene will ensue – the skull will glow red and come alive, then snake its way up out of the sand, revealing its true form as Skeldritch, the ancient demon placed in the Sand Temple to guard the Bow of Light.

It would be nice to defeat Skeldritch outright, but that’s not exactly possible. To get to its vulnerable skull, you need to bash through its spine first. This is accomplished by launching boulders from any of the four hammer mechanisms throughout the room. But where do the boulders come? Why, they come from Skeldritch himself – he’ll periodically launch boulders out of the lowest portion of his spine. To catch these boulders and use them for your open purposes, take out your Sand Wand and draw a wall of sand in front of Link. This will stop the boulder in its tracks, allowing you to move it onto a nearby hammer mechanism.

Hit the crystal switch to launch the boulder and destroy Skeldritch’s first spinal disc. There are still many more, and they get tougher every time. Once the first disc is destroyed, Skeldritch will flail about, then begin launching boulders again. For the second disc, he’ll send three boulders in succession. You’ll need to protect at least one boulder to launch at him, so surround a boulder in sand and push the extra two off to the side, then launch the boulder at Skeldritch before he can send three more.

He’ll flail again, signaling the start of the third round. This round is where things get tricky – notice the armor on his spine. It’s now positioned in such a way that it will completely block a boulder launched normally. You’ll have to find a way to get around the amor. What’s worse, now Skeldritch will fire a hot, red beam at Link from its mouth while you try to position your boulders! You can dodge this beam easily, as it only hits in one location – it doesn’t follow Link. Yet, anyway.

To circumnavigate Skeldritch’s armor, you’ll need to make him turn so that the exposed part of his spine is facing the boulder. Skeldritch always faces toward Link – not toward the boulders – so moving Link around the room effectively turns Skeldritch around. Once he’s turned, use your Boomerang or Bow to hit the crystal switch from afar and destroy Skeldritch’s third disc.

The fourth disc gets even trickier. Before, boulders could blow through a few blocks of raised sand before slowing down and getting caught – now, Skeldritch will launch a ton (well, three) of speedy red boulders at you. These require a bunch of sand to slow them down, and are hard to protect from other oncoming red boulders. Keep trying, though, and you’ll be able to grab one and position it on a hammer mechanism. As you try and position the boulder, Skeldritch will also fire that nasty red beam at you – except this time it will follow you around. Dodge it any way you can, then make Skeldritch turn around a full 180 degrees so that his weak spot is facing the boulder. With your Boomerang or Bow, strike the crystal switch and knock off Skeldritch’s fourth disc.

The fifth disc is the final one – and the most difficult to destroy. His weak spot is very narrow, so your shot with the boulder will have to be incredibly accurate this time around. What’s worse, he’ll be constantly bombarding you with four red, speedy boulders at a time, and his red laser will be even more accurate and quick to follow your movements. As quick as you can, position a red boulder on a hammer mechanism, then have Skeldritch turn roughly 200 degrees counterclockwise so that his small weak spot is facing directly in front of the boulder. Once again, trigger the hammer mechanism with your Bow or Boomerang.

Skeldritch’s body has now been entirely destroyed, and he’s just a head! His helmet will fall off, revealing a tender red crystal lodged where his brain might have been. You’re going to need to slash this up to defeat Skeldritch once and for good, and the only way to do that is to raise yourself up on some sand using your Sand Wand.

Surround Skeldritch in sand, and raise yourself up. After a few seconds, he’ll destroy the sand and break free, so be quick and careful about it. The process never gets any more difficult, so just keep having at that pink area on his skull until he dies – it should take about 12 slashes to do away with him.

Once defeated, he’ll disappear in a puff of smoke, and the pathway to the Bow of Light will be revealed to you beneath the sand where he once lay dormant.

You’ll start out to the right of the Demon Train, one track to the left of the edge of the field. There are three phases to this fight, and each one must be completed before you reach the end of the tracks far up ahead. You progress along the tracks can be seen on the righthand side of the upper screen. The map also shows the location of the Demon Train relative to your Spirit Train.

The first phase consist of the Demon Train tossing out explosive barrels from its rear car. There are five compartments in this rear car that each contain an explosive barrel. Occasionally, the Demon Train will open up one of these compartments to toss out a barrel onto the tracks. Before it can escape the compartment, explode the barrel with a shot from your canon. The compartment will be destroyed. If you do not shoot the barrel in time, or you miss, the barrel will fall onto the tracks and cause you damage.

As soon as you hit the first barrel, the Demon Train will scream and begin to shift tracks. If you don’t avoid the Demon Train some how, it’ll hit you and cause damage, so hit the emergency breaks and avoid it as it shifts. You’ll soon come to a section of track you can use to shift over to another section of track – head over to the left side of the track arena and continue along with your assault of the explosive barrels. After each barrel, the same formula will repeat, so continue destroying compartments and shifting along the track until all five compartments have been destroyed.

Once all five compartments are destroyed, the rear car will break off and the Demon Train will wail and hurry into a giant green portal; you’ll automatically follow it into the portal and restart at the beginning of the track arena for the second phase.

Phase two consists of four deadly lasers inside of a new rear car. Just like with the compartments before, occasionally the Demon Train will unveil one of these laser guns and it will fire horizontally along the track. Before the laser can retract, hit it with your canon – each laser gun takes two hits to completely destroy. Make sure to maintain your distance so as not to get hit by the lasers.

As with before, the Demon Train will switch from one side of the track arena to the other. Hit your emergency brakes to avoid being smashed by the Demon Train, and use the diagonal tracks up ahead to move to the opposite side of the arena yourself. Continue hitting the laser guns until all four are destroyed; once done, that car will also break of and explode, and the Demon Train will escape once again through a green portal, into which you will also automatically follow.

The third and final phase of this battle takes you right up to the front of the Demon Train. Its front car is lined with five gears that rotate around in opposing directions. As you near the Demon Train, the lights on the gears will blink from red to blue, before finally halting as blue laser lights. These lasers are not harmful; in fact they are the same laser lights that appear from crystal switches when you play the Song of Light. You can shut off these five lights on the Demon Train by hitting them with your canon.

Shift to the fastest speed on your train and speed past the five blue lights, hitting each one with your canon as you go. If you hit all five, the car will explode and the Demon Train will scream and begin to fall behind you. Turn your camera around so you’re facing behind the Spirit Train, and fire right into the Demon Train’s face. The Demon Train will then begin to speed up past you, and might shift tracks, so be prepared for that if it happens.

You’ll most likely need to go through one more round of light-destroying, and then then the Demon Train will become fed up with your antics and begin to ram you from behind instead of letting you avoid it with your emergency brakes. When this happens, make sure your train is moving as fast as possible, and just continue hitting the Demon Train’s face over and over again until its final car begins to explode.

Cole will bounce around in the air, laughing at you. The only goal of this fight is the guide Zelda up to the front of the train where Malladus is standing. Along the way, Malladus will fire red laser beams at you, which Zelda can block by standing in front of them. This entire segment of the final battle can go rather quickly if you’re able to accomplish only one thing: keeping Cole from possessing Zelda’s Phantom shell.

Yes, Cole will make attempts to possess Zelda’s armor as you both make your way up the train. Cole will often launch small glowing mice make of electricity that act as the medium of possession. They scare Zelda into submission, so she doesn’t move forward at all when they’re out.

You can kill these mice with any weapon in your arsenal, but if any of them touch Zelda, Cole will begin controller her suit of armor with marionette strings. Zelda will swing her sword at you and make her way down the opposite direction along the Demon Train, effectively setting you back a bit, and if you attempt to run behind her to strike Cole down you’ll most likely be shot by a laser from Malladus, preventing you from hitting Cole.

While it’s possible – but tedious – to try and hit Cole directly with your Whip, Bow and Arrow or sword, the easiest and most effective way to break the possession is to use your Boomerang to target him from afar. The strings will break and you can move Zelda once again towards Malladus.

The mice come in several formations – they will either follow one another in a straight line of four mice, or circle around Zelda and make the circle tighter and tighter. The Whip is an effective and efficient means of getting rid of the mice at all times, though if the mice are circling around Zelda the spin attack works quite well also. Of course, killing the mice makes them drop arrows and hearts – and you’ll need those arrows as soon as you reach Malladus.

Once you’re halfway up the Demon Train, its compartments will begin to shift; the final two compartments will shift in opposite directions, first to the right and then to the left. Don’t worry – Zelda’s path will always correct iself so that she follows along a continuous ground. You won’t need to change the path she’s walking along if you’ve set it. However, at this point Malladus will be firing lasers quite often, so you only recluse of safety is to hide behind Zelda and get her to Malladus quickly. What’s worse, Cole will be launch out mice even more often than before, so be very careful as you move along the Demon Train to destroy them all, or you could face a major setback.

When you finally reach Malladus, guide Zelda to him and target him with her. Zelda will grab hold of Malladus and begin to float in the air with the struggling Demon King. Cole will follow, in a panic, moaning.

You’ve got to shoot Malladus with a Light Arrow as quickly as possible. Although it seems like this is easy, there are several obstacles that prevent you from shooting Malladus as quickly as you have to – Zelda will rotate around in the air, and her armor may block your shot. In addition, she will be floating left and right along the top screen – and her being on the top screen doesn’t make the shot any easier.

If you fail to shoot Malladus in time, he will escape and you’ll be set back a little bit. If you successfully shoot Malladus he’ll become electrocuted with holy light and begin to writhe in pain in Zelda’s arms, effectively defeated and ejected from Zelda’s body – for the moment.

Phase One

The fight consists of two parts: Protecting Zelda and fighting Malladus directly. During the first phase, Zelda will channel her sacred power, and you’ll need to shield her from Malladus’s attacks, which mostly consist of flinging flaming red boulders at her – and you by proxy.

You must use your Lokomo Sword to slash these boulders away – luckily, you can slash them just by tapping them; there’s no need to swipe your stylus across the screen. If any of the boulders hit Zelda, you’ll have to start from the beginning. The battle will go on as long as it takes for Zelda to fully channel her power, and the battle can restart as many times as necessary for this to occur – so don’t let Zelda get hit at all, or you’re in for a long fight!

Malladus will begin by launching a single flaming boulder straight at you. Tap it to get rid of it; Malladus will then follow up with three boulders in succession, again straight at you, followed by another two boulders, and then another two boulders, also all straight at you. It’s significant to know that the boulders will stop going straight at you at this point – and that boulders in general do not have to go straight at you, as now they’ll begin showing strange behavior.

Malladus will launch two boulders; one that arcs to the right, and the other that arcs to the left. They will travel to the far edges of the screen before heading toward Zelda, undoubtedly from below where you’re standing at the time. You’ll have to turn around and tap them, then quickly get the one coming from the opposite direction.

Malladus will then jump to the left side of the screen and fire three boulders straight at you before jumping back to the center and launching his most difficult to avid attack: four boulders at once, in an overreaching arc. More likely than not, you’ll have trouble blocking this at first – to knock all the boulders out of the way, stand as close to Zelda as possible and perform a spin attack just as the boulders are about to hit her. All of them should be properly deflected.

Malladus, at this point, can perform pretty much any number of randomized attacks based on what you’ve seen already – he can even launch two of those boulder arcs in succession, so be prepared to do some fancy spin attacking if you want to see Zelda through to safety. And again, if any boulders hit her, you’ll need to start from the beginning – meaning Malladus will switch back to the lightweight boulder attacks and then start building them up again.

If you keep Malladus at bay for long enough, Zelda’s power will channel fully and she’ll glow gold. Thanking Link for her service, she’ll ask to combine her power with the power of the Spirit Flute. Without warning, you’ll launch into the final Lokomo Song – the song that will ultimately weaken Malladus into a defeatable state.

You have no practice session for this song, but don’t feel too pressured to get it right the first time; if you get it wrong, you’ll simply be asked to try again. The song is the most complicated in the game; five notes long, the majority of them two notes apart from the previous note. The song is as follows: orange, purple, yellow, blue, orange. You’ll immediately recognize this as the main theme of Spirit Tracks, which you’ve heard on the title screen and in various places throughout the game.

If you perform the song successfully, Zelda and Link will launch into a beautiful, sacred duet in which all of the Lokomo from around New Hyrule appear and play their instruments in a grand orchestral display. At the end of the song, a glowing weak spot will appear on Malladus’s back, and you’ll move on to phase two of the final battle.

Phase Two

Your job is now to distract Malladus from Zelda, who is armed with your Bow of Light and poised to fire Light Arrows into Malladus’s weak spot. You can take Malladus on directly with your sword now; just do whatever it takes to get him to face away from Zelda. You can look at Zelda’s view of the battle from the top screen, and when Malladus’s weak spot is in range a target mark will appear upon it. Once that happens, it’s the right time to make Zelda fire a Light Arrow by tapping the Bow of Light icon on the bottom of the screen.

If you hit the button at the right time, the arrow will hit Malladus’s weak spot, causing him to roar. If you missed, well, the arrow will simply bounce off of him. Luckily, you’ve got unlimited arrows, so don’t worry about having to collect refills or anything like that. You’ll need to sink two more Light Arrows into his back before he finally topples over in a fit of rage and pain.

Now that you’ve got Malladus knocked out, run to his head and start slashing it with your sword. Continue slashing it until one of his horns breaks – at this point, he’ll stand up, leap away from you, and begin firing boulders at you. It becomes significantly more difficult to keep him away from Zelda at this point, and when he’s away from Zelda he’ll leap and spin around, making it also more difficult to fire an arrow at his back accurately.

If he faces Zelda for too long without a proper distraction, he’l ram her and shell be knocked unconscious, giving you a good few seconds without anyone to fire a Light Arrow at him. Once again, you’ll need to sink three arrows into his back to make him fall. Time your shots right, and he’ll topple over once again. Slash his head until his second horn shatters, and he’ll get back up for one last round.

This is the end of the battle – Malladus will throw everything he’s got at you now. He’ll throw boulders at you – great quantities of them in rapid succession – he’ll leap around, spin, and attack Zelda every chance he has. Amongst all this movement, you’ll be glad to know that you only need to hit him with one solitary Light Arrow from Zelda’s Bow of Light to fell him; once you do, he’ll topple over.

Run up to his head and slash it – you’ll launch into a stale mate battle between Link and Malladus, in which Malladus will attempt to defeat Link head on. You, on the other hand, will be shoving the Lokomo Sword deeper into the jewel on Malladus’s forehead, so rub the screen as fast and as much as you can to get the edge on Malladus in this locked fight. Zelda will also work her way over to you to help you push the sword deeper into his skull. After a short while, you’l no longer need to rub the screen, and the Lokomo Sword will be pushed fully into Malladus’s weak spot. He will be finished – once and for all.