Lorule Castle

Lorule Castle is a location and the final Dungeon in A Link Between Worlds.^[1] It is Lorule's incarnation of Hyrule Castle and thus is the home of the Royal Family of Lorule. The final room of the Castle, the Throne Room where Yuga Ganon is battled, is demarcated as a separate Dungeon.

Entrance to the Castle

After Yuga has abducted both Princess Zelda and Impa from Hyrule Castle, he spirits them away to Lorule Castle through a Fissure in Princess Zelda's private office. Link gives chase, using Ravio's Bracelet to follow the fiend, and arrives in the private office of Princess Hilda inside Lorule Castle. Following Yuga's merging with Ganon into Yuga Ganon, Hilda casts a barrier around Lorule Castle, blocking the entrance supposedly to keep Yuga and his minions from escaping. After Link has rescued all of the Seven Sages and obtained the Triforce of Courage, Hilda lifts the barrier blocking the entrance, allowing the hero access to the Castle's interior through the front door.

Themes and Navigation

By the time Link has gained the Triforce of Courage, Lorule Castle has been overrun by Enemies who will attack Link on sight. Lava fills much of the Dungeon, making for a very perilous journey through the structure. Link must make use of Ravio's Bracelet in several instances to reach seemingly unreachable places, and he must also manipulate light and darkness to see certain things that would otherwise be hidden to the eye.

Lorule Castle consists of a central chamber where a grated metal platform hangs above a pit of Lava, with spiraling stairways along the walls that climb four floors high. On the first and second floors, several ledges and small rooms containing Treasure Chests and Fairies can be reached through creative uses of Link's abilities. Guarding the staircase to the second floor is the Dungeon's first of five Sub-Bosses, the fire-wielding Lorule Ball and Chain Soldier.

Upon reaching the third floor, Link sees a huge set of doors with the images of four more Sub-Bosses on them. Akin to The Wind Waker, each of the four major rooms of the Castle, accessed from the third and fourth floors, contains familiar elements from previous Dungeons along with new and unique puzzles, culminating in a battle against a returning Boss from earlier in Link's adventure: a Moldorm, a Gigabari, an Arrghus, and another Lorule Ball and Chain Soldier. With the defeat of each of these Enemies, their image on the large doors will light up. The doors will open once all four are defeated, leading to Princess Hilda's private office and the Throne Room of the Castle.

Puzzle rooms

The first puzzle room contains a small maze with blockading walls that can be raised or lowered with Crystal Switches. Link makes his way through the maze using Wall Merging and throwing Bombs over the blockades to remotely activate the Switches. Partway through, Link finds a Big Bomb Flower that he must lead past several Lorule Soldiers and Medusa, in order to destroy a Large Cracked Rock at the end of the maze. There, he finds a Small Key that unlocks the door to the Sub-Boss battle against a purple Moldorm.

The second puzzle room consists mostly of Lava with several platforms that Link can stand upon. Link can walk between these platforms on a pathway made of a series of small, purple platforms that only emerge from the Lava when he gets very close to them, while an assortment of Guruguru Bars, Medusa and Chasupa threaten to knock him off. Link's objective in this room is to allow a Spiked Balls to roll from the north edge to the south by following it closely enough that the emerging platforms keep it out of the Lava. The Spiked Balls collides into another one blocking the path to a small room, in which Link is attacked by a series of Flying Tiles. After dealing with them, a second exit from the small room opens, leading to another area of the Lava room. Link must repeat the process of making a pathway emerge for a rolling Spiked Balls from the north edge, only this time he needs to use Wall Merging several times in quick succession to remain close enough to the Spiked Balls until it collides into another one. This unblocks the path to a Small Key, to be used on a door in the room's northwest corner that leads to the Sub-Boss battle against a purple Gigabari.

The Brazier-lighting mechanism in the third puzzle room

The third puzzle room is a dark room containing a large pit, with a winding path of invisible floor above it that leads to the other end of the room. At the beginning of the pit is a lit Brazier, with several more unlit Braziers appearing along the path. At any time, Link can extinguish a Brazier's flame to bring total darkness to the room, which also reveals the floor. However, when the floor is visible, several mechanical walls roll into place and block Link from proceeding. Re-lighting a Brazier removes these walls but makes the floor invisible again. This forces Link to observe and memorize the path while it is visible, then traverse it to the next Brazier while it is invisible. At the north end of the room is a Small Key and a door leading to the second Sub-Boss battle against a Lorule Ball and Chain Soldier.

The final puzzle room has several pools of Lava that Link must cross using moving platforms, Rafts, and the Hookshot, while a Wallmaster continually appears and tries to slam down on him. There are two hidden eye-like spheres, like those seen in Skull Woods, that Link needs to recover and throw onto a pair of pedestals. Once he accomplishes this, a Small Key appears that leads to the Sub-Boss battle against a yellow and green Arrghus.

Items

The Compass is found in a Chest on the fourth floor of the central chamber. The main Item of the Dungeon, the Red Mail, is found on a hidden ledge just to the south of the Compass. Link must put out all of the Braziers on this floor to reveal two narrow pathways that he can walk across to reach the ledge. If Link has not yet acquired the Blue Mail, it will be found here instead, with the Red Mail then appearing in the Swamp Palace.