Hyrule Castle

Head to Castle Town and exit north towards Castle Hyrule. Midna will spaz out for a bit and be able to drop the shields surrounding the castle, giving you access. If you used the final Howling Stone in the Hidden Village, the warrior skeleton will be on the bridge leading inside. He’ll teach you the Final Skill, the Great Spin. When your life is full, your spin attack will be greatly magnified, both in range and in damage.

Now would be a great time for you perfectionists to track down any remaining Pieces of Heart or pursue the upgrade path for anything you still want to upgrade; if you kept giving money to the Goron in Malo’s Mart, you may be able to buy the magic armor in their shop in the central area of Castle Town, for instance. You may also want to take a jaunt into the Cave of Ordeals in the Gerudo Desert. If you manage to get to the bottom of it (after fighting your way through 50 rooms full of enemies), you’ll earn the right to fill your bottles with Great Fairy Tears. Doing so is mostly irrelevant at this point, since you should have a few bottles by now, and even standard old blue potions should be enough to see you through to the end of the game.

Anyway, when you’re ready to head inside, feel free to do so.

Courtyard

The exterior portions of Hyrule Castle.

Room 1
The exterior courtyard of the castle is a relatively serene place, but as you’ll discover, there are numerous hidden fighting arenas scattered around, that will close around you when you enter them and force you to fight against numerous enemies. Still, you should have a large amount of health by now, and if you haven’t learned how to do a spin attack by now...then you’re unlikely to have gotten this far, let’s just say.

You’ll have to take both the eastern and western exits from this room to find a pair of Small Keys that will let you enter the castle. You can do either path first, if you like. For the sake of cardinal law, we’ll head east first.

Room 2
Defeat all the goblins that ambush you in the first room, then move off to the eastern passage, find the chain sticking out near the northern door there, and pull it to unlock the door.

You’ll have to fight the leader of the orcs when you step into the little fighting ring on the north end of this room. He’s got the same bigass axe as he did when you fought him in Gerudo, but he’s not so tough. If you continually attempt to Back Slice him, you’ll be able to penetrate his guard and beat him down. Be careful if you hit him rapidly enough to cause him to go down on one knee, though; he’ll pay you back by getting up and unleashing a massive spin attack. His blows can take off as much as three full heart containers, but you should be able to out-guile him if you keep on your toes. He’ll give you a Small Key when he leaves town.

The ever-loquacious orc leader respects your toughness.

There are two chests in the area, each with rupees. One is north of the fighting arena; the other can be found by heading up the steps to the south of the arena and jumping down into the southern portion of the room from there.

Room 3
Head back to the main courtyard and proceed to the west. Plenty of goblins here, with archers in the towers and foot soldiers on the ground. Feel free to snipe the archers if you wish, or just ignore the lot of them and roll your way to the north where a pair of boars are penned up. Hop aboard one of them and use it to smash your way to the west and from there to the far northern part of the room.

Boomerang time! There are six pillars with windmills atop them here. You need to hit four of them in a specific pattern to unlock the door nearby. You can find the pattern by using your boomerang on the leaves in front of the door. Ignoring the pillars in the southwest and northwest, the pattern goes west, south, north, east. Open the door and nab the Dungeon Map. Ignore the ladder here for the moment; instead, change into wolf form and use your Senses to find a hole in the ground near the north wall near the pillars. Dig through to reach Room 4.

Room 4
It suddenly starts to rain when you enter this room, which prevents you from lighting the lanterns on the east side of the graveyard. Need to find some way to shut off the waterworks... Do so by fighting your way past the skeletons to the west, and look around near the tree in the north. There’s a rock in the ground near it; blow it up with a bomb, then step on the switch that’s revealed to open the door to the west. Head inside and light the torch to stop the rain, then quickly run back to the eastern door and light both the torches there to reveal a pair of statues.

Now, use your dominion rod to control the statues and bring them to the southern side of this room. There’s a pair of holes in the ground there; slot the statues into the holes, then hop up onto the stones nearby and jump across the statues to find another Small Key. Take it, then head back to Room 1. (There’s a boar near the pillars that you can use to smash through the barricades.)