How to defeat Gohma in Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom

Gohma is one of the longest mainstay bosses in the entire Zelda franchise, dating back to the original 1986 title. Generally, the strategy has always been to target its big, obvious eyeball, but The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom gets a smidge more complicated.

I say “smidge” because the strategy of shooting it in the eyeball is still there. In fact, the quickest way to render the boss vulnerable is to watch for it to open its peeper and put an arrow in there. This only happens while it’s on the wall, and often is just before and after it fires a pretty brutal laser. However, if you manage to land an arrow while its eye is open, it will fall to the ground and be vulnerable to direct attack.

Backing up here, right after the battle starts, I suggest getting out an electric monster. Your best bet is an Electric Wizrobe. One generally doesn’t need much supervision and can be left to its own devices. You mostly just need to create a new one whenever the one you’re using get knocked out. However, if, for whatever reason, you don’t have an Electric Wizrobe Echo, you can use Electric Keese or even a spark, but those are less than ideal.

Whatever your choice is, you’ll need to direct them to the gems that adorn Gohma’s legs. When the crystals are hit with a lightning attack, they’ll light up. If you manage to light all three of them, it’s just as good as hitting Gohma in the eye, but you don’t have to wait for an opening. Gohma will drop to the ground, and you can change to swordsman mode and start whacking it in the eyeball.

Screenshot by Destructoid

Gohma often starts the attack by climbing up on the wall, littering the ground with webs, and dropping a few eggs. If you attack the eggs before they hatch, they’ll break easily, and you won’t have to deal with any monsters. They’ll also often drop hearts or other useful goodies, so, while keeping clear of attacks is where you should be a priority, you should also devote some focus to hitting the eggs.

Once you’ve knocked Gohma to the ground, it will change its strategy. It will largely slash and spin. At this point, your only option is to work on hitting the gems. While I still recommend sticking with Wizrobe, a few Buzz Blobs work pretty well as they’ll gravitate toward the creature, and its attacks will sometimes inadvertently cause the crystals to hit the electric slimes.

While it’s on the ground, I recommend just trying to keep a distance from it. Let your echoes do most of the work, but, if you’re geared for swordsman mode, mopping up the smaller enemies and eggs spawned by Gohma is worth it, as it lets your electric friends do their work undistracted. Once it falls, jump on and get to work.

For me, it only took Gohma toppling over three times to take it down. When it’s on its back, just whack at the eye as much as possible. You may want to be careful if you don’t have much health left, because it will counter-attack when it gets back up, but if you’ve got hearts to spare, just focus on landing as many hits as possible at every opportunity.

That’s all there really is to it:

• Aim for the eye when it’s open.
• Use electric monsters to hit the gems on its legs when the eye isn’t open.
• Attack the eggs whenever you can.
• Once it’s knocked over and its eye is exposed, jump on top and attack it until it bursts.

Destructoid is supported by our audience. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn a small affiliate commission. Learn more about our Affiliate Policy