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Another one bites the dust!

During Link’s adventure, he will encounter a variety of unfriendly inhabitants. You can choose to avoid these monsters and in some cases, it may be wise to do so. However when you’re itching for a brawl or if must defeat monsters to proceed, you’ll want to know how to deal with them.

For starters, touching most monsters or getting hit by their attacks will usually result in Link getting hurt and his heart count depleting. Link’s heart count is shown in the bottom-left corner of the top screen. Once the hearts are fully depleted, Link will keel over and you’ll get a Game Over.

As you can see, losing hearts is bad, so don’t let monsters get too close. If the going gets tough, don’t hesitate to run away or find a safe place to recover. Once you get the shield, you can press R to raise it, protecting Link from most attacks.

You know about defence; now it’s time to talk offence. Typically, Link can hurt monsters with a simple swing of the sword with the B button; some monsters go down in one hit, others may require more his before croaking.

Against tougher monsters or when surrounded by the fiends, hold the B button to charge the sword and wait for a circle to briefly appear around Link, then let go to perform a sword spin, attacking all nearby monsters around Link.

Not all monsters are weak to the sword though; some have unique weaknesses, but all monsters have at least one weakness. Should you face such a monster, you’ll have to use your noggin’, a little. Check what items you possess and think “would this be useful against this monster?”, then try it out on the monster.

One monster has a hard outer shell that causes the sword to bounce right off, but if you pound with the Hammer, the monster will flip over and reveal its soft underbelly. The same applies to boss battles–these guys are big, but they’re still monsters and they still have weaknesses.