The Legend of Zelda (video game)/YMMV


 * Anticlimax Boss: Ganon. After the hellish trek through Death Mountain, where you've had to deal with swarms of Demonic Spiders while getting lost within its labyrinthine halls, beating him's as easy as stabbing wildly in the dark and then shooting him with a single Silver Arrow. Some of the minibosses in the final dungeon are more threatening than him!
 * Breather Boss: Gohma and the second Aquamentus you fight are way easier than most of the other dungeon bosses. When you run into Aquamentus in Dungeon 7, you're bound to be able to kill him in two hits. Gohma, meanwhile, only takes one.
 * Demonic Spiders:
 * Blue Wizzrobes are constantly moving and teleporting around where they deem fit, and take six swings to kill with the White Sword - even the impressively-powerful Magical Sword needs three hits to dispatch one, and the only other weapon that works on them is bombs. If you're in their line of sight, they fire a beam that'll take a whole heart on contact even with the Red Ring; they also love to hang out with Bubbles that temporarily disable your sword on contact, and Like Likes that will try to eat your beam-blocking magic shield. You see a blue Wizzrobe, you do what we do. You run your ass off. Unless the next room is sealed and you're forced to fight them - and it almost always is.
 * Orange Wizzrobes are awful in their own way: while they're less mobile than their blue cousins, they're every bit as powerful. While their attack patterns are predictable, you almost never get to fight them in a safe, controlled environment since they're often encountered alongside Bubbles, Like-Likes, and Blue Wizzrobes as well, and they have a very nasty tendency to plug you with spells that you weren't prepared for.
 * Darknuts have been consistently a thorn in players' sides throughout the series, and they make their debut as a commonly-cited example of this. Encountering them in the third dungeon is one of the many signs for you to pick up the White Sword, which takes them out in two swings - even then, you can't attack them head on with any sword, they're immune to almost everything else, and they walk erratically enough to suddenly turn towards your sword attacks at the worst moment. Thankfully, you can also hit them with bombs, the Magical Rod or unenhanced magic blasts from the Rod.
 * And those are just the red Darknuts - the blue ones are even worse, being faster and stronger. You encounter them in the 5th labyrinth, and have to go through at least 2 rooms full of them to get the Whistle, which is required to complete the game. Odds are if this is your first playthrough, your best option is the White Sword, which requires 3 hits to drop them - the Magical Sword reduces that to 2 hits if you can find it. Their speed also makes it much harder to land attacks from the side consistently.
 * Orange Tektites can be this for players that are behind on their upgrades. They always appear in packs and hop all over the place like total spazzes, dealing respectable collision damage while being annoyingly hard to hit back. The first ring alone however demotes them to Goddamned Bats status.
 * Memetic Mutation:
 * The series' distinctive Item Get jingle and pose for Link made its debut in this game. DU-NU-NU-NAAAAAAAAAAA!
 * "It's dangerous to go alone! Take this" is a quote said by the old man who gives you the Wooden Sword, and has been given a Shout-Out in many a video game since.
 * Those who played I Wanna Be the Guy may be thinking of a somewhat crass follow-up to this quote.
 * "Dodongo dislikes smoke."
 * "Grumble, grumble..."
 * "It's a secret to everybody."
 * That One Boss: Manhandla without the White Sword (or if you don't know about its weakness to bombs), Gleeok normally. The former is constantly moving around the screen while spewing fireballs, and it moves faster every time you lop off one of its heads. Gleeok is similar, except that the dragon itself is immobile... but its heads are not. You have to hack at the remaining heads as more and more disembodied heads start floating around trying to ram you and roast you with their fireballs. The last Gleeok is the worst of the bunch because he has four heads to eat through!