Stalfos Knight

Stalfos Knights are a large sword-and-shield-wielding variety of Stalfos found primarily in earlier The Legend of Zelda games. Some qualities that define them have since been applied to ordinary Stalfos.

Zelda II: The Adventure of Link
Stalfos Knights, referred to in English as simply Stalfos, appear in some of the early palaces in Zelda II: The Adventure of Link. Stalfos come in red and blue. They attack with a sword and wield a shield at chest height, but leave their feet unguarded, allowing Link to attack them by swinging his sword while ducking. Red Stalfos are also capable of Downward Thrusting when they spawn, but will not jump back in the air to do so. Blue Stalfos can, however. A stronger, helmeted version called a Parutamu is found in some later dungeons.

The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past
Stalfos Knights, also referred to as Skeleton Knights, appear in The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past in the Ice Palace, where they fall from the ceiling. They are much larger than ordinary Stalfos, and wield long swords, which they slash at the ground with. Their artwork also shows them with a shield, though this is absent in the sprites. Attacking them will cause them to temporarily crumble; from here, they can be destroyed with a bomb. They are only capable of facing towards the screen. In the Game Boy Advance version, ones with slightly different color appear in the Palace of the Four Sword.

The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening
In The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening, one large Stalfos Knight named Master Stalfos appears. He steals the Hookshot in Catfish's Maw and must be fought four times. He acts like the ones in A Link to the Past, but takes more hits. Like the Gohmas, he is not encountered again in Turtle Rock.

Captain N: The Game Master
In the Captain N: The Game Master episode Quest for the Potion of Power, Stalfos appear in Parapa Palace. Like many things from the show, they are off-model, in their case having an alien-like elongated ridge on their skulls.

The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past (comic)
In the comic adaptation of The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past by Shotaro Ishinomori, Stalfos appear in Chapter 10, where Kholdstone keeps two of them, one with red armor and one with blue armor, frozen as "wall decorations" in the Ice Tower. When Link tells him he wants to see the map of the Dark World, Kholdstone releases them to fight him. Due to their constant regenerating, Link cannot keep them down, so he sends out a blast from the Master Sword to destroy them. However, this also causes the tower itself to begin collapsing, but not before Link sees enough of the map.

Cadence of Hyrule: Crypt of the NecroDancer featuring The Legend of Zelda
In Cadence of Hyrule: Crypt of the NecroDancer featuring The Legend of Zelda, Stalfos Knights appear as minibosses and now wear teal helmets with orange horns. They wield huge battered swords and spiked orange shields, and are again larger than normal Stalfos. Their attack pattern is similar to The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, with a few notable tweaks. They now follow Link like ordinary Stalfos in the game and must be attacked from the side or with other means such as a bomb to make them crumble into an inanimate pile or bones, at which point the Stalfos Knight Head will aggressively float around and fire lasers. Defeating the Stalfos Knight Head will merely make it retreat back into its body, which will return to life, but its fallen body can still be attacked in order to defeat it. They have two stronger variants, called Yellow Stalfos Knight and Black Stalfos Knight.

Trivia

 * The Great Hyrule Encyclopedia erroneously considers Stalfos Knights to be the name of the original Stalfos.