Before Link enters the portal to fight Demise, Fi warns him there’s “a 0% chance” of him returning unless he wins the battle. Yeah, that’s how boss fights have worked for a long time now. Link and Big Ugly enter, only one can leave. Not sure why it should be any different for this final boss. Anyway, Link confirms that he’s ready to fight Demise, and Fi wishes him luck in the battle before Link walks through the portal. The pocket dimension where Link and Demise will fight has the ground covered in a thin layer of water and a skyscape all around. Demise says the reason it’s so pleasant is he’s happy to see Link has the courage to fight and wants to give Link a nice tomb. He asks Link to keep it interesting, and says Link can take comfort in knowing his friends are next when he dies.
For the actual fight, the skies turn gray and stormy. The first phase of the fight is a straight-up sword duel; Link can get through Demise’s defense with a long enough string of attacks, or dodge Demise’s attacks and counterattack. After a lot of hits, Demise is knocked on his back, but in a cutscene where he quickly recovers to his feet. Lightning starts striking all around, and Demise charges his sword for a Skyward Strike. This is Link’s cue to do the same, and he has a very short window to hit Demise before Demise attacks; if Link’s fast enough the two attacks will cancel, otherwise, Demise gets a hit in. A Skyward Strike stuns Demise so Link can score a few more hits, and eventually, Demise is knocked on his back so Link can finish him. (He’ll dodge the first time.) As Link jumps for the Fatal Blow, lightning strikes his sword, empowering it to mortally wound Demise. Demise staggers to his feet and raises his sword, only to lose his strength and ends up planting it in the ground before it disappears. (Bye, Ghirahim.) With his final breaths, he curses future generations of Links and Zeldas to have to fight a reincarnation of himself, and he laughs as the darkness takes him. Link raises the Master Sword to absorb what remains of Demise’s spirit.
Back in the temple, Impa congratulates Link before drawing his attention to Groose and Zelda standing behind him. Zelda says it’s finally over and breaks down in tears of relief. Groose walks away, congratulating them on their role in The Legend of Groose. (He says it’s a joke, but Groose has been more important than some Zeldas…) He says its time to go back, but there are a couple farewells first. First, Fi says it’s time for her to rest and leads him to a pedestal prepared to hold the Master Sword until Ocarina of Time. Link places the sword in the pedestal, and as he walks away, Fi speaks to him from the sword and appears one last time, saying that she enjoyed their time together, and thanking him for it. Meanwhile, Impa refuses to come back with them, saying her duty keeps her in the past: someone needs to watch the Master Sword, the gate, and the Triforce. Zelda finally accepts this and gives Impa one of her bracelets as a keepsake, and Impa promises they’ll meet again.
The gate fades behind Link, Zelda, and Groose as they return to their own time. The old woman’s standing there, wearing Zelda’s bracelet on her wrist. Impa reminds Zelda of her promise, before fading into light, her duty finally completed. The game closes with a shot of the Master Sword as light strikes it and the gates behind it (leading to the room where Zelda slept) open.
Over the credits, we start with key scenes from Zelda’s story that Link wasn’t present for: waking up near the Sealed Temple and talking to (old) Impa, at the Skyview Spring, being captured and rescued at the Earth Temple, arriving at the Temple of Time, and arriving at the past Temple of Hylia. Then it switches to pans over various key locations from the game (with the Isle of the Goddess still in the scenes in Skyloft), ending with a focus on the Triforce on the Statue of the Goddess in its new location.
The post-credits scene shows Gaepora, Cawlin, and Strich coming to the surface for reunions. Later, Link and Zelda watch from the Statue of the Goddess as Groose and his friends return to the sky. Zelda says she wants to stay on the surface and asks Link what he wants to do, and the camera pans to their Loftwings returning to the sky, riderless.
(After the end, there’s a prompt to restart in Hero Mode. If you say yes, it asks if you really want to lose all your progress. If you say no, it asks if you really want to quit without saving. I get there’s not a whole lot of point to saving after the final boss is beaten, but the way the options are presented here is… silly. I have no desire to replay this game (and Link’s Awakening soured me on Hero Mode), so I left it saved before Demise.)
I don’t think, at this point, it will come as a surprise that I didn’t like Skyward Sword much. I keep asking myself if I can really put it below Four Swords in my rankings. There were good things: I liked Ghirahim, Groose was well-written, the birth of the Master Sword was a good scene, and the farewells to Fi and Impa in the end were touching. The Ancient Cistern was a good dungeon, and the Lanayru Sand Sea section was mostly solid as well. But so much else didn’t click. I can’t imagine a version of the game without motion controls, but I also can’t imagine what would make me want to replay it with them.
