Legend Of Zelda: Ranking Every Ganon From Worst To Best

9. The Adventure Of Link

Ganon doesn’t appear in the gameplay of the second entry into the Zelda canon, but his monstrous presence is felt across this particularly divisive game. In the sequel to The Legend Of Zelda, Link is tasked with, you guessed it, saving the princess, all the while stalked through Hyrule by disciples of Ganon, who require the hero’s blood to resuscitate their fallen leader. If you die, Ganon returns.

This makes the list because, in The Adventure Of Link, you are going to die, repeatedly. Until Breath Of The Wild, no Zelda game was so inclined to remind you of your own mortality as this one. Its often unfamiliar mechanics (the weird side scrolling stuff) and stronger than average enemies mean that you’re most likely going to bring see Ganon’s resurrection multiple times before restoring the princess to life.

The game over screen and its succinct “Return Of Ganon” message are iconic, but this isn’t the Ganon we’ve come to know and fear. He’s entirely reliant on cronies, only getting to flex once the hero is good and dead.

In due course the developers would be shoehorning Ganon into almost every Zelda title, but he takes a backseat here. He wouldn’t do so for long.