10 Best Dungeons In The Legend Of Zelda Franchise

A Link To The Past took the Zelda franchise to a new level with its epic sense of scale, and no better is this illustrated than in Ganon’s Tower, which remains a how-to for exciting climaxes to video games. ALTTP sends Link on a world-hopping adventure, with a great deal of variety in its level design, and the villain’s stronghold presents the hero with his toughest challenge yet.

Ganon’s Tower is a brutal dungeon, appropriately crawling with pretty much every foe you’ve come across throughout your journey. Bosses from past dungeons resurface in order to keep Link from reaching the evil wizard Agahnim; the hero must summon all his courage and rely on his impressive arsenal of weaponry to conquer the forces of darkness once more.

An endgame boss rush can sometimes feel like padding, but here it only helps Ganon’s Tower build to a crescendo. Link’s mortal foe is throwing anything he can at the hero, and it’s up to you to battle through it.

The format for the level before the showdown was perfected here, and you can see echos of it in later games. With a formula this good, why mess with the recipe?