Ocarina of Time
Ganon's Castle
See Ganondorf for the boss fight atop Ganon's Tower.
Entering Ganon's Castle
Contortion hovers
This method uses Contortion Hovering to cross the gap, starting at the top of the broken arch. As you enter the area, there is a path leading up the mountain on the right which enables you to reach the starting position on top of the white bridge.
Align the position and angle roughly similar to the video below, although there is some leniency. Eight bombchus are required to clear the entire gap. For each hover, the chu + shield inputs must come out within a few frames after backflipping.
Sideflip hovers
Like the contortion hovers, requires 8 chus, but depends on how much distance you get from each hover. Using an extra hover at the end can often be a good idea for safety.
QPA bomb hovers
Should use 9 bombs for the hovers. Get glitched damage value (e.g. quick putaway or empty jumpslash), then get ISG using Navi or damage ISG from a bomb. Line up the same way as for the contortion hovers (shown in video) then do backflip hovers towards the castle. Pulling the bomb too early (within 1f) or too late after each backflip will fail to explode the bomb.
Double hoverslide
with HESS
with two Superslides
Ganondoor Wrong Warp
It's possible to enter Ganon's Castle by wrong warping (from Fire Temple or Deku Tree) into the Tower Collapse scene, and savewarping, which will put you at the start of Ganon's Tower. See Deku Tree § Ganondoor (Deku to Collapse) for details. Wrong warping is the only way to enter the castle as Child Link.
Forest Trial
Torches as adult (Glitched damage)
Demonstrated below with VC stick as adult QPA. Can be done with any method of glitched damage (e.g. empty jumpslash on N64 1.0).
Torches as adult (Action swap)
Usually obsolete. Requires stick as adult, first person item, and arrows.
Torches as child (Hover)
Torches as child (Action swap)
Assuming Spirit Trial chus are needed in both cases, this strat is normally a bit slower than the hover, due to needing Slingshot. It's a bit faster if Slingshot is already needed, comparison video here.
Silver rupees as child
Shown in the video at 1m35s, after lighting the torches in the first room.
Water Trial
Freezard clip through red ice
Align to the red ice, before moving to the approximate position in the video. As soon as the freezzards appear on the screen, sidehop to the left, then take out your Hookshot and move to the right. When you reach the freezards, use the hookshot and if the positioning is correct, you will clip through. From there, quickspin them to kill them, which unlocks the door.
Skip block puzzle in Water Trial
After pushing the block once towards the red ice in the second room of Water Trial, a moderately-lenient jump will make it up to the ledge where the hammer switch is. A simple setup is shown in the video below.
To hit the switch through the red ice, get right into the corner and do a jump attack with the Megaton Hammer.
Shadow Trial
Shadow Trial HESS
Also possible to do unbuffered (but difficult).
Recoil jump over main gap
Shadow Trial sideflip hovers
Can cross all of Shadow Trial without hover boots this way, but is less common. Killing the Like-Like isn't strictly necessary.
Shadow Trial torch megaflip
A megaflip off the torch in Shadow Trial will make it to one of the white platforms that appear when the torch is lit. Useful if you have no Longshot and Hover Boots but have a fire source or can get glitched damage.
Hookshot to Golden Gauntlets chest
Getting back up to the chest from the switch requires a precise Hookshot extension if you don't have Longshot. Without Hookshot, it is possible to void out and redo the room from the start—the chest will still be there.
Directions are oriented as if looking from the start of the room:
- Backwalk off left edge of platform
- Climb up, target and turn 90 degrees left
- Backwalk off close edge of platform
- Hold target when climbing up to turn around (facing towards the start of the trial)
- Draw sword
- 2x shielded diagonal slash
- Perform hookshot extension
- Aim as shown to the "bottom-left" of the chest
Despite the setup the aim will still be precise.
Fire Trial
Skip the Longshot in the Fire Trial
Usually, once all the silver rupees in the Fire Trial have been collected, one has to Longshot to the platform in order to proceed. However, if you do a hoverslide from the platform with the Fire Slug on and perform either a jumpslash or a backflip (jumpslash is easier to time) then it is possible to make the distance without using the Longshot. Once you jumpslash, hold backwards to ensure you run safely onto the platform.
Light Trial
Strength skip superslide from Fire Trial
Strength skip explosive clip
with Bomb
with Bombchu
Spirit Trial
Beamos hover to high silver rupee
as Child
Throw a deku nut at the Beamos, then pull the statue 7 times. Afterwards, do the setup shown in the video and target the Beamos to get the correct angle. Activate the infinite sword glitch from the Beamos, and the recoil from the statue should put you in the correct position. (If you miss getting ISG the first time, hold down-left while crouching and attempt to get it again.) Go into C-Up mode to have the camera facing the angle Link is in, turn 180 degrees and then mash backflip until you get the silver rupee.
as Adult
Jumpslash to Beamos silver rupee
as Child
as Adult
Weirdshot past second barred door
A weirdshot off the torch slug can be used to hookshot the torches past the iron bars. This saves a very small amount of time compared to shooting the crystal switch with Bow extension, unless done quickly unbuffered.
Burn ceiling without Fire Arrows
You can shoot a normal arrow through the torch in the final room to burn the ceiling, rather than using a Fire Arrow. Shown at 51s in the video below.
Trials Skip
There are many ways to skip completing the six trials in Ganon's Castle (of course, a wrong warp to Collapse will also skip them). Most of these work because the loading zone into Ganon's Tower is slightly misplaced and can barely be reached without hitting the damaging barrier around the tower.
Staircase hover
Discovered by ZeldaXMaster
Performing a 2 bomb staircase hover against the central tower wall facing Water Trial, then doing one more backflip will allow you to reach the loading zone for Ganon's Tower.
Megasidehop hoverslide
This method can be done with Hover Boots and either a bomb or bombchu.
Armos Clip
Discovered by Acryte
Go to the Spirit Trial and pull the closest armos statue 6 times towards the closest wall. Now get on the opposite side of the statue and push it 4 times. Now get on the statue's left side and push it 2 times. Then jumpslash directly between where the statue meets the wall to clip into the unloaded main run. Now turn to face the armos and align with the wall. Sidehop 6 times to the left, backwalk until you see Link's body contacting with an invisible wall on the left, and then sidehop once to the right. Continue backwards from there and you will enter Ganon's Tower.
A variant of this can be done from Water Trial using a Freezard. Discovered by ZAR.
Miscellaneous
Ganon's Tower
Iron Knuckles
The videos below show a couple of strategies for dealing with the Iron Knuckles fight without dying.