Two Zelda: TOTK Abilities Make Stone Talus Bosses Way Too Easy

Jul 17, 2023

The Stone Talus boss in Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom has become so easy, thanks to Link's abilities, it can hardly even be considered a boss anymore.

Stone Taluses are one of the many difficult bosses that Link will face in The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, or at least they used to be until Link learned some new abilities. With the introduction of Link's new abilities, these once difficult foes have become effortlessly easy, now being only a little more threatening than the standard Bokoblin enemy. Gone are Link's days of starting a fire to give himself a lift to the top of the Stone Talus or burning through weapons to destroy their tough ore deposits, now Link can defeat these beasts in as little as a minute or two with just a couple good swings, and they stand no chance against him.

Made entirely of rock materials, the Stone Talus will rise up out of the ground and begin throwing rocks at Link. It then has an ore deposit located somewhere on its body, usually the top, that Link must hit with a bludgeoning weapon to destroy and thus the Stone Talus is defeated. Many aspects of this fight used to be increasingly difficult, such as the nearly unavoidable rocks being thrown or the tedious process of creating fire to give Link an updraft. The complex process of defeating these enemies was time-consuming, but now, with Link having learned several new abilities in Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, most of these same things can be accomplished with minimal effort.

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The Recall, Ascend, and to a lesser degree, Fuse abilities make the Stone Talus boss fights significantly easier. The Fuse ability allows Link to merge together a weapon and nearly any other object he can possibly come across. This allows for creating some pretty tough weaponry, but also some incredibly heavy-duty bludgeoning objects. With the power Link can get behind some of his swings, taking out the ore deposits on a Stone Talus can be done in seconds. While that's definitely a boost, Link was able to get good enough weapons before, so while it does streamline the process a bit, it's not necessarily a groundbreaking change as this was always the easiest part of fighting these enemies.

The real significance comes from Recall and Ascend which entirely changed the way Link comes at the Stone Talus. The Stone Talus has one primary method of attacking Link and that is through launching large boulders at him. These can be a little annoying to dodge, especially if trying to create a fire for an updraft, but the recall ability makes these incoming rocks a pointless attack. With the Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom Recall ability, Link is able to stop the boulder in midair and send it flying back at the Stone Talus. While this won't kill it, it certainly keeps Link from having to worry about taking any damage.

Now that Link has no real concerns about being injured, he can focus on getting on top of the Stone Talus. Though this can be done in multiple ways such as gliding or climbing, the Ascend ability makes the other two methods obsolete. Using Ascend, Link can run right under the Stone Talus and then proceed to ascend straight up through its body to the top of it where the ore deposit weak point is likely waiting, and if he gets knocked off, no problem – he can just do it over and over. The use of these two abilities together makes this fight with the Stone Talus boss effortlessly easy.

With the dramatic decrease in difficulty of the Stone Talus from Breath of the Wild to the Stone Talus in Tears of the Kingdom, it bears considering whether this enemy can even still be considered a boss fight. Though it is still deemed so by the game, plenty of the other wild boss fights, such as Gloom Hands and Phantom Ganon, pose a much greater threat. With the Stone Talus being no more difficult than some random Bokoblin or Horriblin enemy, perhaps they should have had a reduction in their enemy status. There is still one exception, however, the Battle Talus. The Battle Talus is a Stone Talus enemy with platforms atop it that hold several archer Bokoblin enemies. While the Stone Talus solo is no match for Link, the upgraded version, the Battle Talus, does pose a little bit more of a threat.

With the Battle Talus in Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, players can follow the same basic methods mentioned, but the added onslaught of arrows will add some more difficulties to the fight. Though this boss won't be significantly harder, it is threatening enough that its place as a Zelda boss still feels warranted. However, the same cannot be said for the other variants of the Stone Talus that are affected by elements. Though they have added dangers, such as the Frost Talus being able to freeze Link, they can still ultimately be defeated with the same method and thus still don't put up much of a fight. So it's hard to say if these enemies were created newly in Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, whether they would hold as much stake as they do being pre-established bosses.

Regardless of how difficult or easy these enemies are for different players, one thing that's for sure is that they still remain fun to encounter with their large rock bodies popping up out of the ground unexpectedly. Their miniatures, the Stone Pebblit, which is just a young Stone Talus, actually almost make these enemies adorable in some way. Especially since the Stone Pebblit and Stone Talus pose just about the same amount of threat to Link now. It's hopeful that should these bosses continue to make an appearance in the future that there will be added difficulties presented to their makeup to account for the broken abilities or that any future Link abilities will not have as much impact and sway as the ones in The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom did.