You finally get there. After hours of trekking through the desert and messing around with a giant golden cannon, Link blasts off into the atmosphere. It’s supposed to be this grand, ethereal moment. Instead, you land on a crumbling piece of brickwork surrounded by weird, bulbous bird-people with human faces.
The Twilight Princess City in the Sky is weird. There’s really no other way to put it.
I remember the first time I played through this back on the GameCube. The music starts with that strange, rhythmic chanting—that "Oocca" theme—and you realize this isn't the majestic floating palace you saw in Skyward Sword years later. This is something older, decaying, and mechanically frustrating. It’s the seventh dungeon in The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, and honestly, it’s usually the point where players either fall in love with the game’s scale or start checking how many Heart Pieces they have left so they can just finish the thing.
The Oocca Problem: Who Actually Built This?
Nintendo’s lore for the Oocca is a bit of a mess.
In the game, Shad—that nerdy scholar in Telma’s Bar—tells you the Oocca are an ancient race, even more ancient than the Hylians. He suggests they created the Hylians. That’s a massive lore bomb to drop in a Zelda game. But when you get to the Twilight Princess City in the Sky, it doesn't feel like a birthplace of civilization. It feels like a high-tech wind farm that someone forgot to maintain for a few centuries.
The Oocca themselves look like something out of a fever dream. They have these round, featherless bodies and uncanny human-like faces. It’s a huge departure from the typical "cute" Zelda races like the Koroks or the Gorons. Some fans hate them. I kind of dig the creepiness, but it’s definitely a vibe check.
If you look at the architecture, it’s all fans and gratings. This wasn't a city built for people with legs. It was built for creatures that can fly—or at least hover. But the paradox is that the Oocca don't really fly well in the game; they mostly just flutter around. This has led to some pretty deep rabbit holes in the Zelda community. Eiji Aonuma, the longtime producer of the series, has hinted in various interviews and the Hyrule Historia that the City in the Sky might have connections to the Wind Tribe from The Minish Cap, but the game itself stays pretty quiet about those links.
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Navigating the Wind and the Void
Mechanically, this dungeon is a beast. You’re essentially playing a 3D platformer with high-stakes gravity. One wrong jump and you’re falling into the white abyss.
The core of the gameplay revolves around the Double Clawshots. You get the second one here, and it completely changes how Link moves. Suddenly, you aren't just walking; you’re Spider-Man. You’re hanging from ceiling fans, lowering yourself down on chains to trigger switches, and zip-lining across massive gaps while the wind tries to blow you off.
It's intense.
Most Zelda dungeons are about puzzles—pushing blocks, lighting torches. The Twilight Princess City in the Sky is about momentum. You have to time your swings with the rotation of giant fans. If you miss the window, you're back at the start of the room. It’s one of the few places in the game where the Wii’s motion controls (or the Wii U’s gyro) actually felt like they added a layer of frantic tension, even if pointing at the screen got a bit tiring after an hour of swinging.
Argorok: The Peak of the Experience
If you can get past the Oocca and the dizzying heights, you get to fight Argorok.
Argorok is a massive, armored dragon. He is easily one of the coolest bosses in the entire Zelda franchise. The fight takes place at the very top of the city, in the middle of a literal thunderstorm.
The scale is ridiculous.
You have to use your Double Clawshots to climb up these massive pillars that are being struck by lightning. Once you’re high enough, you hook onto Argorok’s back to rip his armor off. It’s cinematic in a way that very few games in 2006 could manage. Even by 2026 standards, the choreography of that fight holds up. It feels dangerous. When the rain is pouring down and you’re hanging hundreds of feet in the air waiting for a gap in the dragon's fire breath, the "City in the Sky" finally feels like the epic location the NPCs promised it would be.
Why It Divides the Fanbase
So, why do people complain about it?
- The Backtracking: To get the Big Key, you basically have to circle the entire perimeter of the city. If you forget one switch, you’re doing a lot of slow, mid-air swinging to get back.
- The Aesthetic: After the grit of the Arbiter’s Grounds and the haunting beauty of the Snowpeak Ruins, the City in the Sky looks a bit... grey. It’s a lot of stone and blue sky. Some people find it boring to look at.
- The Music: That Oocca theme is an earworm, but not necessarily a good one. It’s quirky and dissonant. Compared to the sweeping orchestral scores in other parts of the game, it can be grating during a two-hour dungeon crawl.
But honestly? I think the weirdness is its strength. Zelda games are at their best when they're slightly uncomfortable. The City in the Sky is uncomfortable. It’s lonely, it’s windy, and it feels genuinely alien.
How to Handle the City in the Sky Without Losing Your Mind
If you’re revisiting this on an emulator or hoping for that long-rumored Switch port, there are a few things to keep in mind to make the experience better.
First, don't rush the Clawshot segments. The game’s physics for the "swing" can be a bit floaty. If you try to fire the second Clawshot too early while you're still oscillating, you'll likely miss and fall. Wait for the peak of the arc.
Second, pay attention to the fans. Almost every puzzle in the Twilight Princess City in the Sky involves wind direction. If a door won't open or a platform won't move, look for a crystal switch that's tucked behind a propeller.
Finally, bring plenty of arrows. The Keese and those annoying "Peahats" are everywhere, and they love knocking you off narrow ledges while you're trying to aim your Clawshot. Clearing the room before you start swinging is a life-saver.
The Legacy of the Sky City
Looking back, you can see the DNA of the Twilight Princess City in the Sky in games like Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom. The idea of a lost civilization living above the clouds became the entire foundation for the later games.
But there’s something unique about the 2006 version. It’s more mechanical. It’s more industrial. It’s less "magic" and more "ancient technology that is barely holding together." It represents a specific era of Nintendo design where they weren't afraid to make things look a little ugly and industrial to sell the idea of a world that has moved on.
The Oocca might be weird looking, and the dungeon might be a bit of a slog if you hate heights, but it remains one of the most ambitious levels Nintendo ever built for the GameCube and Wii. It pushed the hardware to its absolute limit with the draw distances and the sheer number of moving parts.
If you’re heading back into Hyrule soon, give the City in the Sky a bit of grace. It’s a strange, lonely place at the edge of the world, and it’s arguably the most "Twilight Princess" moment in the entire game.
To make the most of your run, ensure you've fully upgraded your quiver before entering, as you'll be relying on ranged combat more here than in almost any other dungeon. Also, keep an eye out for the hidden Poe Souls—there are two in this dungeon that are notoriously easy to miss because they require some creative Clawshotting off the main path. Master the "hang and drop" technique with the Clawshot early on, or you'll spend more time looking at loading screens than the actual sky.