Ocarina of Time
Dodongo's Cavern
See King Dodongo for the boss fight in Dodongo's Cavern.
Skip intro cutscene
If the rock wall at the dungeon entrance is blown up between Link touching the load zone and the load beginning, the cutscene that usually plays will be skipped.
The first half of the video shows exiting with a slash for the lowest possible exit speed; the second half shows exiting with a slow backwalk, which gives a slightly higher exit speed (0.84 instead of 0.1) but is safer because the positioning is much more lenient than what's needed to exit with a slash.
- Pull bomb and start holding up
- Throw the bomb when Link is by the dark splotch on his right
- Backflip twice
- Exit with slash if your positioning was just right, otherwise exit with slow backwalk
Skip Eastern Half of 1F
It's possible to reach the switch that unbars the door on the west side of 1F early. This skips all the rooms on the east side of the first floor, including the first Lizalfos battle.
Doing this as an adult is trivial, since adult Link is tall enough to grab onto the ledge with the switch. As a child, you can grab onto the ledge using a Ground Jump
With a Strength Upgrade
Discovered by Acryte
If you have a strength upgrade, such as the Goron Bracelet or Silver Gauntlets, you can simply pick up the bomb flower and store a ground jump off it like you would with any other bomb. See the Ground Jump page for methods.
With a Bombchu
Discovered by Runnerguy2489
If you don't have a strength upgrade, you'll need to store a ground jump off a Bombchu explosion, using the bomb flower as your grab-able object. There are three ways you can do this.
- Hold Z for the duration of the trick, without targeting anything
- Stand in front of bomb flower, within grab zone
- Pull out a Bombchu
- Tap R then press R + A (almost simultaneously)
or
- Hold Z for the duration of the trick, without targeting anything
- Pull out a Bombchu
- Stand off to the side of bomb flower, within grab zone
- Around the 7th-8th flash, tap R then press R + A (almost simultaneously)
or
- Hold Z for the duration of the trick, without targeting anything
- Pull out a Bombchu
- Stand off to the side of bomb flower, just slightly behind the grab zone
- Around the 7th-8th flash, hold R and mash A Note: Make sure you're not too far back for this method or you may get a superslide off the bomb flower
Reach Bomb Bag Chest Early
It is possible to reach the bomb bag chest starting from the south side of the room, skipping the flame circle rooms and the second Lizalfos fight.
Bombchu Megaflip Method
Discovered by Runnerguy2489
- Line yourself up with the north side of the alcove coming into the room
- Sidle to the edge until the tip of Link's hat is to the right of the corner of the wall
- Use C-up and align the sword so it overlaps the parallel arch structure in the distance
- Turn around 180 degrees
- Perform a bombchu megaflip
This is generally viewed as the method of choice.
Bombchu Boost Method
- Pull out a Bombchu
- Set up like in the video
- Hold Z and wait
- Jump off the edge at 7th-8th flash and mash B
This method doesn't require a shield, so it is useful if you happen to have lost it or are skipping it.
As Adult Link
Adult Link can grab the pillar with a simple, well-angled jump. [visual aid to come]
Hookshot jump to 2f bridge
AKA "doom jump"
A death hookshot jump using the lava beneath the 2f bridge can easily get Link on top of the bridge, which has no collision on its underside. With a bottled fairy, to revive afterwards, this provides a quick path to the bomb bag chest.
- With 0.5 hearts, stand roughly in the spot shown at the beginning of the video
- Aim the hookshot towards the right side of the ladder
- Target, hold hookshot, and backflip; continue holding target and down
- Pause on the second frame that the hookshot reticle has disappeared above the ladder (first frame Link's left ear appears fully above the top of the wall in front of him)
- Hold up and tap the hookshot button during [unpause lag] (simply releasing the hookshot button will cause the hookshot to fire 1 frame earlier, which will not work with this cue but is important for the backups below)
The height of a hookshot jump depends on how much the hookshot is trying to pull Link upwards when it's interrupted. Aiming even a little bit above horizontal is enough to get Link to the bridge, so this can be done without a pause buffer by holding less than fully down after the backflip so as not to aim too high, then timing the frame perfect hookshot input.
If you're buffering, you can back up pausing too late by saving, resetting, and retrying, which preserves the bottled fairy. You can back up pausing too early by continuing to pause buffer until you get the right frame. The video below also covers how to back up pausing one or two frames earlier than intended in ways that make the next pause buffer a 2-frame window instead of a 1-frame window:
- If you pause 1f early (first frame reticle disappears above ladder; Link's left ear is aligned with the top of the wall in front of him), then continue holding target and hookshot but release the control stick to neutral and pause buffer again. Then:
- If your next pause is 1f later (reticle still invisible even though Link is aiming slightly lower), tap the hookshot button during unpause lag
- If your next pause is 2f later (reticle visible at very top of ladder), release hookshot without tapping during unpause lag
- If you pause 2f early (reticle still visible at top of ladder), then continue holding target and hookshot but release the control stick to neutral and pause buffer again (same as above). Then:
- If your next pause is 1f later, continue buffering
- If your next pause is 2f later (reticle just below second-from-top rung), tap the hookshot button during unpause lag
- If your next pause is 3f later (reticle just below third-from-top rung), release hookshot without tapping during unpause lag
Staircase Hover to switch Block
Discovered by Acryte
Using a Staircase Hover you can reach the block in the north room without going around normally. This saves about 10-15 seconds over the normal route.
This hover is not needed as adult, because adult Link is tall enough to simply climb up the ledge to the block.
Pull switch block without stopping
By starting to pull the block from as far left as possible, Link will just miss the hole containing the switch, and he will be allowed to continue pulling the block until it falls on the switch.
Boss room without pushing block
You need a bottle with a bug or fish to do this trick. Using Ocarina Items allows you to keep the item in the bottle, but can make it more difficult to backflip out of the hole. Using the bottle switch trick costs you the bottled item, but seems to make the backflip out of the hole more consistent.
Ocarina Items method:
- Drop and re-catch bottle item
- Align yourself with the center of the boss door
- Backflip twice
- Backflip once more, pressing bottle then sword while in midair
- Wait about half a second then press B to stop playing the Ocarina
- Turn 180 degrees and backflip out of the hole
- Backwalk to the boss door, turn around, and open it
Bottle switch trick:
- Drop and re-catch the bottled item
- Align yourself with the center of the boss door
- Backflip twice
- Backflip once more, pressing bottle in midair
- Turn 180 degrees and backflip out of the hole
- Backwalk to boss door, turn around and open it
Defeat King Dodongo with Bombchus
Discovered by Acryte
King Dodongo can be defeated without bombs or a strength upgrade. This is mostly for a challenge, and is usually not useful in speedruns.
- Activate ISG off Navi by targeting KD, or off a bomb flower
- Turn the corner and stand on the slope near the lava
- Face away from and perpendicular to KD
- Hold Z and wait for KD's fire breath
- As soon as KD rolls past you, pull out a chu and sidewalk to the centre of the lane
- Run forward towards KD until you have about a sidehop's distance between you and his mouth
- Around the 8th flash of the chu, press R to shield drop it
- Immediately let go of Z, turn around 180 degrees, hold Z and R, and backflip into the explosion to hover
- Immediately backflip out of the hover and pull out a chu in midair (do not shield drop the chu; if done correctly, KD should snap it up on his own)
- When KD is stunned, touch his head to deliver ISG damage
- Follow KD when he rolls
- Repeat until dead
This trick is used in the current Child Dungeons route to skip bombs. It it used in correlation with lighting the eyes with chus.
Note that this is a very precise trick.
Lizalfos miniboss
The lizalfos have 6 health each and will try to run away once they take 3 damage. To prevent the first lizalfos from getting away, store 2 damage on power crouch stab with a deku stick slash, crouch stab the lizalfos, jumpslash with the deku stick to store 4 damage, then crouch stab once more to kill. From there, hit the second lizalfos with two 4 damage power crouch stabs in quick succession to end the fight.
Raise the stairs
Stairs room skulltulas from below with longshot
Navi text skip
Flame skips
This video covers both flame skips.
This video covers an alternative strategy for the second flame skip.
Double chu HESS from east wing skulltula room
Open the door as far right as possible. Target, turn 180, and then double chu HESS.
Light dodongo's eyes
with bombs
with bombchus
Discovered by Acryte
You can light the dodongo head's eyes with bombchus from the main room, allowing instant access to the end of the dungeon. In most cases it is preferable to go through the dungeon to get the Bomb Bag, but in certain scenarios this could be useful.
Begin by going to the back right corner of the main room at the bottom of the stairs, facing the back wall. Align the right edge of C-Down with the line. Drop one bombchu immediately, and drop the second one at the peak of the second flash.
A more recent setup is seen in the video below.
as adult with mouth cutscene skip
This uses an extra explosive but skips the cutscene of the mouth opening.
- Target right side of door frame
- Sidehop right and sideroll (release target)
- Sidehop left
- Instant shield drop first chu
- Instant shield drop second chu when first chu is around the c-buttons on the HUD
- Immediately pull third chu, then drop after a slight hesitation
as adult from floor
Hover boots backwalk to east wing
This is roughly 1s slower than using a hover boots HESS (exact amount depends on context), but is an easier alternative. This works because you can untarget and turn around midair while using hover boots if Link is under 100 units above the ground below. It's possible but a bit more precise to cross this gap with rolls instead.