Descending into Gloom's Lair (All Phases) - The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom (OST)

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Also when it said, "A Sages Power Cannot Reach You" I was like 🥲

I love how in all previous Zelda games with Ganondorf, the music always builds and builds as you ascend to his tower. But in this one, it builds as you descend down into the loneliest and darkest depths to his level. Him being so far underground is in some ways far more sinister than him waiting in a tower if you ask me.

for all that its worth, this is exactly how you execute a "this is it, the end of the game" type of beat.

One of the greatest soundtracks and atmospheric sequences in video game history. Two moments stick in the mind; 1) "A sage's power cannot reach you." 😬 2) When you get to that final platform at the bottom, this music peaking in the background and it says "Jump". I was like "fuuuck!" So good.

Once Phase 4 of Into the Gloom kicked on and that organ came in, my wife looked at me while I was playing and said, “okay, this isn’t fun anymore, this is scary. It’s like you’re descending into hell!”

Me diving from the Imprisonment Chamber: "Here we go, we're now deeper than the intro, let's go!" Hitting the bottom, chanting begins, Zelda's torch at the bottom: "... shit, what have I done"

“….The wind, it’s blowing”

23:19 This. This part right here. The absolute fear this part induced in me when descending was like no other. The first time in ANY game that I’ve ever played that the music alone made me genuinely scared to keep moving forward. An absolute masterclass in invoking anxiety and fear into the player about what comes next.

The Depths in general can be pretty scary but despite this place not being completely dark, the music really helps sell this place in particular feel like Hell. It's so scary, I love it

The Hyrule Chasm into the decaying castle and from there into the Forgotten Foundation then the Gloom Lair is the most amazing slow burn ending in video game history. Spiraling into the depths without end is an isolationist darkness without compare. Some evil genius who is perfectly in tune with nightmares becoming reality made this. Nobody else could dream of this level of abandon and arcane mystery.

When I got there the first time and noticed Zelda's torch still lying around, I knew shit gets real

The entire finale, from the descent into Gloom's lair to saving Zelda after the final battle, is just incredible. Nintendo went all out on making TotK's endgame memorable.

Running past enemies I wasn't confident enough to fight, just to reach a chasm, and see a huge red object far, far below me as 23:39 hit was an experience I'm not gonna forget soon.

The power of a sage cannot reach you.

If you look on minimap radar, you can see how deep or high you are at the sea level. The deepest point down in the gloom origin is about 2.5 kilometers deep... In real life, only select few mines are deep beneath 1000 meters...

In heinsight, I should’ve realized that this was the path to the final boss a LOT sooner than I did

Tears of the Kingdom has solidified Hyrule as the main character of this story and uses BotW as the first part of a larger series (TotK being second) to build upon. The climb up to meet Calamity Ganon in BotW was very forthright and overt; the music, very fanfare-like and had a distinct form to it. The descent to the final confrontation in TotK is antithetical to BotW's. The path is hidden and, though straighforward, winds almost endlessly downward. The music is disjointed, chaotic, and menacing and becomes even moreso the further down one goes. Only at the very end, during the final freefall to Gloom's Lair, does the music coalesce into something with a foundation; but this only adds to the tension. As final as Ganon's defeat seemed in BotW, Tears comes along to show us that the Calamity was nothing but a recurring symptom of a cancer entombed deep within the land of Hyrule. By defeating Calamity Ganon, we were merely buying time. The addition of the depths and the sky islands in Tears of the Kingdom is broadening how we perceive Hyrule and quite possibly preparing us to encounter what is truly causing the cancer. What is the motivation driving Gannondorf to so ruthlessly pursue dominion of this land? Why did the Zonai choose to depart the heavens and settle here? I feel we are only two-thirds of the way through this story and that there is a reason a certain symbol/object that is typically ubiquitous in Zelda canon has had so little mention.

I have no idea if this was intentional or not but taking that final leap onto the gloom infested platform kinda looks like a heart as you drop down to it. Almost as if its saying you have reached the heart of the gloom. Such an amazing game!

From the moment I found the torch, to the moment where Ganondorf emerged from a literal womb of darkness at the deepest part we have ever been to, I was wound up tight, tense and anxious. When the fight started, I quickly realized I should have brought more food, so I tried to teleport out. Nope, point of no return was passed when the sages power couldn't reach me anymore. Truly alone, in the depths of darkness, fistfighting the literal demon king. And the entire time, this fantastic tune driving the point home: You wont be leaving here alive.