How to defeat Hinox in Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom

The Hinox is a recurring underboss in the Legend of Zelda series and can be found in The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdomregions of Hyrule Ridge and West Necluda. For longtime fans of the Zelda franchise, the return of this villain is sure to be a sight to behold.

This Cyclopean monster follows a fairly straightforward attack pattern and shouldn’t be too much of a problem if you’re in the middle of the game and have decent gear. As long as you remember to bring a bow, a set of arrows and some strong melee weapons you should be fine.

Where to find Hinox in Tears of the Kingdom

There are several Hinox in it Tears of the Kingdom, but is easiest to find in the Rowan Plain, east of the Forgotten Temple and just west of the Kiuyoyou Shrine. You can see it on the map below.

The best thing about taking out this Hinox is that it takes a nap, which means you can jump on it almost anytime.

Image: Nintendo EPD/Nintendo via Polygon

How to beat the Hinox in Tears of the Kingdom

First, make sure you are prepared. You will at least need it arrows and a strong weapon. We used a mighty one Lynel bow and a Stone talus hammerand it went down in less than a minute.

When you’re done, sneak up behind the Hinox. As long as you crouch and move slowly, you can get extremely close.

Image: Nintendo EPD/Nintendo via Polygon

When you’re ready, equip your strongest weapon and just start hammering the enemy. This isn’t an official Sneakstrike, but we still took a third of his health before he even got up.

Image: Nintendo EPD/Nintendo via Polygon

Once the Hinox is on its feet, the real battle begins. Switch to your bow while it’s upright, run back and aim. It’s a fairly slow moving enemy at this point, with a slow turning radius. Once you see the blue of its iris, you can rain righteous fury on it with your arrow. If you want to go for the taste gain, you can use one bomb flower on it, but a normal arrow will do just fine, as you can see in the screenshot below.

Image: Nintendo EPD/Nintendo via Polygon

This will cause the Hinox to cover its eye and stumble backward, stunned, giving you a short time (about five seconds) to attack unimpeded. Go and attack his feet until he dies. With a decent melee weapon, you won’t need more than one arrow to take down this monster.

What rewards do you get from a Hinox?

Hinox drops a collection of items once you defeat him, as shown in the screen below. There will be a few monster parts and a few pieces of fruit.

Image: Nintendo EPD/Nintendo via Polygon

A defeated Hinox leaves a fruit drop, inclusive Apple, wild Berry, full fruit, palm fruit, mighty bananasAnd fortified pumpkin. Which fruit you get is completely random.

Image: Nintendo EPD/Nintendo via Polygon

In addition, there are three monster parts to grab, including the Hinox horn, which provides +12 Fuse attack power. That’s a nice buff, and not surprising given how spiky it is.

Image: Nintendo EPD/Nintendo via Polygon

Likewise the Hinox tooth offers +8 while the Hinox toenail adds +7 attack power. Despite being “as strong as plate armor” according to the item description, the toenail doesn’t add any defense to your shield.