Palace of Twilight

Your brief jaunt into the real world of twilight (remember that all your shadowy excursions in the past simply took place in a Hyrule that had been perverted by the power of Zant) will take you into that world’s royal palace, where the usurper king holds sway over his subjects.

First Floor

East Wing

Room 1
Not much to see here at the moment. Head down the steps to the east to enter the east wing of the castle.

The first floor of the Palace of Twilight.

Room 2
Make your way past the plants to the north end of the room. You’ll come across a floating Zant head here; dodge or shield yourself against its attacks and hit it with your sword a few times to kill it. Doing so will reveal a Small Key. Clawshot your way to the northern door and unlock it to head through.

Room 3
Head into the fog here and you’ll automatically change into wolf form. You’ll need to use your Senses to detect the Zant mask in the fog; kill it with leap attacks. Doing so will reveal a chest with the Compass in it, as well as one with another Small Key. Grapple up to the north platform. If you wish, you can clawshot to the southwest to find a chest with a 100-Rupee piece in it.

Room 4
A huge, empty room. This almost always means that there’s a fight coming up, doesn’t it? Yes, yes it does. Indeed, when you drop down to the floor here, a shade of Zant will attack you. Or rather, it will summon in lots of creatures to attack you by proxy.

Video Walk-through

Zant's televisual image can be tough to track down, but you'll get him eventually.
Watch It »

Defeat the first wave of bats as best you can; by the time you do, the second wave of man-eating plants will probably be out in full effect. Just wait for a second, and they’ll all disappear. Now you can start taking on Zant himself. He’ll continue to warp around the room every few seconds, but will eventually materialize and create another ball of magical energy above his head. When he does this, quickly close the gap with him and hit him! You’ll be able to get a few shots in before he fades away, and if you hit him before he releases the ball of energy, you’ll disrupt it and won’t have to fight any more monsters.

That’s basically the long and short of it. There’s no way to predict where Zant will materialize at, but his whole summon-ball-and-throw-it thing will take a few seconds to complete, so even if he’s across the room, you should be able to quickly roll to him and attack him, even after he throws his energy. If you’re having a hard time getting to him, you may want to try using your wolf form.

Removing the Sol

Now, when Zant’s dead, you’ll be able to attack the hand in the north end of the room to get it to release the Sol. You have to pick this up and bring it all the way back to Room 1. Easier said than done, obviously, as the hand will detach itself from the ground and follow you throughout the palace in an attempt to retrieve it. If you drop the Sol, or if you stand still, the hand will move over it, pick it up, then start moving it back towards the northern room here.

Some ground rules: a good way to temporarily halt the progress of the hand is to stand underneath it, wait for its shadow to move over you, then run out from underneath it before it falls to the ground. You can also stun it by hitting it with the clawshot, but you can’t kill it. If it grabs the Sol, you still have a chance to retrieve it by clawshotting the Sol while it moves to the north, but this is difficult to do, since you can’t lock onto the Sol.

Anyway, grab the Sol, bring it to the middle of the room (it’ll banish the darkness and let you move into the fog), and place it into the receptacle on the floor there. That’ll net you a stairwell leading to the south. Move up it, then turn around and clawshot the Sol to you from the top of the steps before moving back to Room 3.

Room 3
Drop down into the center of the room and move into the fog. Drop the Sol into the receptacle and quickly spin-attack the small shadow beings here. Climb up the steps that were raised; if the red hand gets close enough, you can whack it with your sword three times to temporarily render it immobile. Reach the top of the steps and clawshot the Sol, then throw it above the ledge to the south and climb up after it. (You have to throw it near the jars, or it’ll bounce and roll back down.) Grab it, avoid the shadow beings, then drop down to the southern door and move on.

Ah, this isn't very fun at all.

Room 2
The red hand will immediately follow you into this room, so stand still for a second until its shadow passes over you. Run south before it crashes down, and you’ll net yourself a few seconds to work with. (Don’t worry about the chest you see in this room, by the way; we’ll come back for it later.)

Note that the room is slanted downward to the north. Any time you drop the Sol, it’ll roll towards the hand, so it’s best not to drop it! The worst threat here are the man-eating plants, who’ll lunge at you when you get near. Fake them out by getting close, until they are ready to lunge, then move away from them until they do so. Quickly move past them while they’re recovering and head to the southern door. If you do lose the Sol to the hand, get back to the northern end and line up a clawshot attack on it!

Room 1
Use the Sol on all the Twili in the area to revert them to their normal states. They won’t talk to you, for whatever reason, but it’s still the polite thing to do. Place the Sol in one of the two receptacles on the main platform here, and you’ll open up a platform that will float you over to the western side of the area.

West Wing

Room 5
Clawshot your way to the ceiling target here, then drop down onto the moving platform. Jump to the north, shielding yourself from the Zant head’s fire, until you reach the platform there and can kill it. Doing so will reveal a Small Key. Use it on the northern door.

Room 6
Morph into wolf form and head into the fog in front of you. Kill all three shadow beings at once to drop the gates, then go after the Zant heads that appear. They’re perfectly killable in wolf form; just use your jumping attack three times on them to make them disappear, then three more times to finish them off for good.

When you’ve revealed the secret chest, head north and start clawshotting around the room. There are four chests in the area total: two with Rupees, one with the Dungeon Map, and the secret one with the Small Key. Grab the key, at the very least, and head north.

Room 7
Another Zant fight, similar to the first one. Kill him, grab the Sol, then place it in the receptacle in the mist to make a stairwell. Kill the shadow beings, if necessary, then run up the steps and clawshot the Sol back to you.

Hee hee! The hand is lost! Isn't that cute?

Room 6
If you act quickly here, you can really confuse the hand. Drop down and head into the middle of the mist and drop the Sol into the receptacle. The stairs that raise should be tall enough to block the hand’s passage towards the Sol, and it will often get confused and wander around a bit. If you don’t manage to get the stairs up in time, pick up the Sol, walk to the northwestern corner of the lower level, get it to drop down to the ground, then run back to the receptacle and drop it again.

Head to the north and clawshot your way up to a point where you can drop down to the stairs. Move up to the southern end of them and clawshot the Sol back to you, then head back to Room 5.

Room 5
Lure the hand over your position and make it crash down before attempting these jumps. If at all possible, jump two platforms at a time before stopping and waiting for them to realign; that’ll get you to the middle platform that much quicker. When you do, the Sol will light up the two orbs there and create a platform to guide you to the southern exit.

Room 1
Place the second Sol on the center platform to obtain a super-charged, light-powered Master Sword. When you swing it, it will deal way more damage to enemies here in the twilight world, and will also be used to push back the fog; no more need to carry a Sol around. In fact, if you head into Room 5 and Room 2, you can swing your sword to uncover the fog and find two Pieces of Heart. (Spin attacks are best for fog-clearing!)

When you’re ready, head north and clear out the fogbank with your spin attack. Then head into main portion of the tower.

Previous PageNext: Moving Up The Tower