The Only The Legend Of Zelda Enemy That Appears In Every Game
If brawling with these boney baddies in every "Zelda" game feels like deja vu, there's a good reason for it!
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00:00If brawling with these bony baddies in every Zelda game feels like deja vu, there's a good
00:05reason for it.
00:06Faster!
00:07Faster!
00:08A secret entrance to the underworld is just ahead!"
00:11While The Legend of Zelda may not have the most well-known enemies in Nintendo lore — nothing
00:15could possibly beat Mario's Goombas and Koopas, for instance — that's not to say that the
00:19beloved action-adventure series doesn't have its fair share of mainstay foes.
00:23Even fans who have only played one or two titles in the series can likely identify a
00:27Moblin or an Octorok.
00:29Thanks to how ubiquitous these enemies are throughout the series, not to mention their
00:33striking designs —
00:34"...Oh boy!
00:35I'm so hungry, I could eat an Octorok!"
00:39— many of the enemies from Link's earliest adventures on the Nintendo Entertainment System
00:43still regularly appear in modern entries today, making them just as much of a part of the
00:48overall brand as the Master Sword or the Triforce.
00:51With how often the same enemies in Link's rogues' galleries show up, it may be surprising
00:55to hear that just about every single The Legend of Zelda enemy doesn't actually make
01:00an appearance in every game.
01:02Some particularly iconic creatures, such as the ultra-powerful Lynel, actually seem to
01:07be mostly limited to certain strands of the Zelda timeline.
01:10Even poor old Ganon himself, the supposed main antagonist of the series, is completely
01:15absent for more than a few entries in the franchise, probably to give the poor guy a
01:19break after appearing as the villain in those embarrassing Philips CD-i games.
01:23"...You dare bring light to my lair?
01:26You must die!"
01:29All in all, there's only one type of enemy that has been present and accounted for in
01:33every single mainline The Legend of Zelda title since the original game.
01:38More of a race than a singular entity, the Stahl are skeletal creatures that often attack
01:42Link in dark dungeons and the dead of night, and they have a presence in every title.
01:47While Stahl foes, undead Hyrulean soldiers, are the most common variations, a vast array
01:52of creatures fall under the Stahl category, including Stahlhounds, Staldras, and the Stahllord.
01:59As the official The Legend of Zelda encyclopedia reads,
02:02"...if a monster carries the name Stahl, it is undead and often little more than shambling
02:07bones."
02:08Every mainline The Legend of Zelda game from the 1986 original up to 2017's The Legend
02:13of Zelda Breath of the Wild contains at least one Stahl-type enemy.
02:17Stahl foes themselves can be found in every title apart from The Legend of Zelda Four
02:21Swords, which features Stahl children, and The Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild, which
02:26instead includes Stahlkoblins, Stahlmoblins, and Stahlizalfos.
02:30A couple of Link's other recurring foes get close to appearing in all of the games, though
02:35they're generally missing from one or two titles.
02:37For example, Keese, the bat-like creature that terrorizes players from above, appear
02:42in all titles except Zelda 2, The Adventure of Link.
02:46All the rock-spitting Octoroks appear in every game except for The Legend of Zelda
02:49Twilight Princess, but Stahls have real staying power.
02:53Whatever the reason for their constant presence in the series, though, the Stahl have certainly
02:57captured the imagination of players, who continue to debate their feelings about the enemy faction.
03:03Some fans have argued that the series has relied too heavily on the Stahl, while some
03:07want to see a whole Zelda game devoted to skeletal and zombified enemies.
03:11Others can't seem to get enough of the skeletal baddies, and want to add more of them to the
03:15series, like one fan who found a way to mod the size of Stahl gangs in Breath of the Wild.
03:20Love them or hate them, Stahl-type creatures are a fixture in The Legend of Zelda series,
03:24and they'll likely remain that way for as long as there's a Master Sword to wield and
03:28a Triforce to assemble.