Stone Tower

This dungeon is highly original; perhaps the most original Zelda dungeon I have played.  While most dungeons require you to enter once and fully explore from there; this dungeon requires you to enter and exit, and by flipping the temple, you change its structure and the puzzles within for yourself so that you can fully explore its depths.  An interesting change.

Another interesting change is that the prize of this temple are the Light Arrows.  Granted, this is the last of the arrow set we've gotten and the entire game's dungeon prize set has revolved around the bow (hmm...) but we still have plenty that we need to do in Termina, and the Light Arrows just make things easier to do; so they've gained a lot of use in all reality (in contrast to prior titles with Silver/Light Arrows in which they were your prize just before the final battle, so that was your only use for them.)

One of the interesting things about this temple is that while the others focused on the use of one of Link's forms in order to get around, as this is the last temple before our final showdown; you have to make skillful use of all of your forms and instead of a song which allows you to access the temple itself, this song does that but in a different way: the Elegy of Emptiness, instead of just opening a door, allows Link to make copies of himself which allows for more complex switch puzzles.  Granted, this is the only way to open the door to the Stone Tower but it is a rather unique presentation of a transportation song.

The King of Ikana has bid us to rid the evil from the Stone Tower, as the reason they are cursed is all in there.  Wow, the Skull Kid has really brought a lot of evil upon this land, I wonder what his beef is (I actually don't, but I won't spoil it yet.)  We even get to have a showdown with the King, which is cool...good guys fighting each other, that never happens in a Zelda game!

Either way, after exploring this temple thoroughly and getting an awesome upgrade (the strongest sword in the game) we encounter Twinmold, an evil pair of sand worms?  Okay, that sounds kind of Final Fantasy to me!  Either way, we become a giant to face them (we may as well, as this is the only room in the game the mask works in.  I understand that based on the programming, but on a pragmatic stance it isn't explained, which leaves me feeling empty.)  This is the easiest boss in the game.  As you go through the game, the bosses actually start with the most difficult and end with the easiest, but this can be blamed on preparedness, experience and stamina.  However, were I to face Twinmold as a three-heart weakling, I'd still have better luck than I did against Odwala as the same.  Admittedly, simply because of the concept of the arena he's in, Gyorg is the hardest of the four underbosses.

However, all that being said, we've now freed all four giants...we just have to collect a few random heart pieces and then we'll be taking care of that moon that's about to crash into Termina! (That thanks to the Song of Time, we've avoided that occurence several times now...yay!)