Lake Hylia

Lake Hylia is a large Light World overworld screen in the southeast section of the map. It contains:

• A large island that houses the Pond of Happiness and a portal to the Dark World
• A small island, seemingly inaccessible island with a heart piece on it
• A whirlpool that warps to the Waterfall of Wishing screen
• The entrance to the mini-moldorm cave
• The Hylia shop
• The Hylia great fairy

Much of the screen is covered in deep water.

Strats

Fake flippers to northwest pond

This is a key trick done in most of the NMG routes that ban save and quit. East of this screen is the Hylia waterfall screen, and it has a whirlpool that warps Link to the pond screen in the northwest section of Hyrule. When starting from Desert Palace and going to Death Mountain, using this whirlpool is ~6 seconds faster than taking the fastest land route. The problem: the player almost certainly won't have the flippers at this point.

Enter fake flippers, a minor glitch that allows Link to swim in deep water without the flippers. To perform this trick, Link must jump in the water on the Lake Hylia screen while 1 pixel from the transition to the Hylia waterfall screen and immediately swim onto the Hylia waterfall screen. The X-position you need is 0DE7. If Link moves onto 0DE8 (1 pixel to the right of 0DE7), the screen transition right to the Hylia waterfall screen will be triggered. If Link is on 0DE6 (1 pixel to the left of 0DE7), then the trick will fail.

Fortunately, there's a setup to land on 0DE7 using the nearby bush:

1. First, align Link on Y-position 0F98. This is done using the overworld wall below the two buzzblobs. This usually happens naturally as Link is dashing to the right, but there are a couple of factors that can disrupt this (more on this below).
2. If Link is dashing, cancel his dash by pressing . This prevents him from walking up or down any, maintaining his Y-position at 0F98.
3. Walk right until Link is flush with the bush. His position should be X: 0DC0, Y: 0F98.
4. Slash and hold B. During the sword slash animation, begin holding . It's critical that you begin holding both and before the slash animation has completed.
5. Walk to the ledge, holding B and the whole way. After Link reaches the ledge hop, press A to do a quickhop.
6. While Link is in the air, transition to holding .

If everything is done correctly, the screen will transition, and Link can swim to the whirlpool on the Hylia waterfall screen.

Figuring out potential problems

Buzzblob blues

Imperfect wall alignment

Glithy hop

If you get a glitchy hop where Link hops and splashes on land, then you're missing the quickhop. You must either:

1. Quickhop the ledge (this is fastest)
2. When Link touches the ledge, shift to holding until he jumps. The next step where you need to shift to holding before Link lands in the water is the same.

Small optimizations

Instead of holding sword for the entire diagonal walk to the ledge, you can make sure Link walks with his sword held for at least 1 frame after cutting the bush and then stop holding B so Link drops his sword. Because Link walks more slowly with his sword held, this can save up to 9 frames on the walk to the ledge.

One word of caution: letting go of B on certain frames during Link's walk will throw the trick out of alignment. These frames happen on every 16th frame of Link's diagonal sword-out walking pattern. So to be safe and optimal with this strat, you want to walk for at least 1 frame with Link's sword out and walk no more than 15 frames before dropping it.

Beware the infinite scroll

Because you've jumped into the water on the Lake Hylia screen but are swimming on the Hylia waterfall screen, the game won't be able to resolve Link's position if you take any damage. For more details, read the infinite scroll section of the fake flippers article.

Given this, it's extremely important you don't take damage from the zora on the Hylia waterfall screen.