Ganondorf's Return: Gerudo Desert

Rise Again, King of Evil

Peace in Hyrule: What a naive notion! With that meddling witch, Cia, out of the way, and the Master Sword no longer sealing the remaining fragment of his soul, the Dark Lord is free to rise again and take back what is his: the completed Triforce. Let all who stand in his path suffer demise and despair. Hyrule is his and his alone!

To win this Scenario, you must defeat anything and everything in your path. There is no Defeat Condition because the Prince of Darkness will not be stopped by anything in his quest for the Triforce. Follow the missions as they appear and you’ll make short work of this Scenario.

Capture the Central Keeps

You first task is to capture the Keeps within the southwestern settlement. The clever—and obviously desperate—citizens of the settlement close the east and north gates leading into the settlement in an attempt to keep you out. They then follow up by opening the S. Desert, South Oasis, and Central Keeps to unleash their inhabitants on you. Don’t let them slow you down; the Gerudo Desert belongs to the Gerudo Prince of Thieves and no others!

In order to access the settlement, you must capture three marked Keeps in the center of the desert. Take your time and work at conquering the map as you go about this task.

Gold Skulltula Opportunity While capturing Keeps, work at increasing your KO count to 1,000 and making the Gold Skulltula appear. The Skulltula can be found in the corridor directly to the east of the Arbiter’s Keep.

Heart Container Opportunity You can also grab Ganondorf’s Heart Container for this Scenario by destroying the boulder that is on the outer northwest corner of the North Oasis Keep.

Capture the Settlement

The settlement gates open up as soon as you’ve captured all three of the central Keeps. When that happens, instead of entering through the settlement’s east gates, head north and free your subjects from the prisons so they can assist with the fight. Ganondorf is more than a match for anything on the battlefield, but having some extra help certainly isn’t a bad thing. Simply defeat each Prison Guard to release your imprisoned subjects. There’s a third prison to the southeast, as well.

After you’ve freed your loyal subjects, enter the settlement from its north entrance and capture both the S. and N. Settlement Keeps.

Defeat Aeralfos

When the Settlement Keeps are under your control, all but the Sacred Grounds Keep will open up to you. Run around the map capturing all of the Keeps to show your adversaries that there is no resisting the King of Evil.

Piece of Heart Opportunity You’ll find a chest containing a Piece of Heart after you capture the Clifftop Keep.

Shortly after you begin your campaign to capture all the Keeps, you’re tasked with taking out the leaders of this little resistance: the Aeralfos that are hiding in the Sacred Grounds Keep in the northeast corner of the map. Capture the Arbiter’s Keep to gain access to the Sacred Grounds.

Once you enter the Sacred Grounds Keep, the gates behind you slam shut and you’re forced to defeat the Aeralfos’ before you can open the gates again. To make matters worse, King Dodongo enters the battle around this time, which means you need to hurry if you want to prevent the killer king from taking Keeps you’ve already captured. Command Zant and Ghirahim to intercept King Dodongo while Ganondorf goes about his work

Monster Mayhem!

Not too long after King Dodongo enters the battlefield, Gohma and Manhandla join the fight. You must defeat one of them before they rendezvous on the map, otherwise the Giant Bosses get a morale boost that makes them much more devastating than they already are. Turn the tables and gather your characters around each boss to gain helpful bonuses for yourself!

Manhandla enters the field and begins firing seed mortars wherever you are on the map. Focus on taking out Manhandla as soon as you can to prevent being pelted relentlessly by its seeds.

Once you’ve defeated the Aeralfos’ and all three Giant Bosses, the battle is over and your enemies will never again forget the name of the Dark Lord, Ganondorf.