I am doing OoT randomizers using retroarch and my xbox one controller. I learned some glitches and are continuing to learn more but I am having a strange issue with the infinite sword glitch mainly using deku sticks. It activates with the glowing outline and all but it does zero damage. I did a jump attack before doing it and a regular slash but it still doesn't do any damage. I mainly want to use it to farm sticks early in case of no sticks lol. happens way too often. But I just walk through the plants in front of deku tree and my stick just goes through them like the hitbox disappeared or something. Any advice would be great!

If you are new, hello and welcome:) I’m happy to share this absolutely loved game with you. Can’t wait to hear about the random things and curiosities that spark your interest. Cheers

How did I never notice this? How many of you knew this? It's why Epona always felt awkward to control! The controls always were relativ to Epona, not the camera, contrary to Link! Left/Right for turning, Up/Down for forwards/backwards.

So there are these wooden chests, like ones that I think I've seen in fire temple. They are locked by a ring of fire around them. I've been trying to google and YT search the right words to get to anything at all that's related to what I'm talking about to no avail.

But I know there's totally a way to hookshot through the fire ring onto the chest without using the switch to lower it... I see ZFG do it in randos all the time.

How do, reddit?

halp... It looks kinda like the attached image, just with a chest in the center instead.. Not sure if I attached it right though?

https://imgur.com/a/5hTjCwv

The context is me having played through some fights on my N64 and on fanmade mods on emulator without shield and the Broken Giant's Knife with 3 hearts to spice things up a little. So the tactics generally focus on this build. Obvious/Well known solutions like stunning with Deku Nuts/Hookshot or abusing the Power Crouch Stab are usually omitted because they are boring.

Stalfos

Oh, You are Approaching me?

When a Stalfos approaches should be the time you get scared. They may Lunge at any time. A Lunge depletes two hearts and normal Slizes deplete one heart, so don't take them lightly.

With practise you can anticipiate their Approach-Lunge and counter them midair with a Lunge of your own. This has to be timed completely by gut though, there are no cues. When you visually register their attack, it is already too late and you better Dodge to the left side. Dodging right or back puts you at risk of getting hit by their absurd range as they Slize diagonally towards the bottom right.

They may psych you out and block your Lunge and punish you. A Stab might be fast enough to interrupt them still.

If you do not feel safe doing this yet, approach them diagonally, moving from right to left preferrably.

Stalfos can be tricky to predict sometimes, but when they move straight towards you they are always going to attack.

For their normal attacks your Stab is the best option to counter them, since it is the fastest sword attack you have. When you interrupt an enemy with an attack, you generally get priority, leading to you not receiving damage, even if the damage particle effects are displayed.

If it is a kind of Stalfos that falls down from the ceiling when approaching their spawn, they are vulnerable when appearing to all kinds of attacks. This requires knowledge of those spawns however.

Circling

One of their more annoying close-range tactics.

Stabbing is your bread and butter since it's your fastest attack; what makes this difficult though is that OoT's targetting sucks they keep circling you, changing the direction on your analog stick. When they strafe left you won't have much trouble, but when they strafe right they can even get all around and end up blocking the camera only to end up behind Link again (which might accidentially be the perfect gameplay equvilanet of getting dizzy from an enemy circling you). Whenever I feel like the angle and the camera get too silly I just backflip out of there and wait until the Stalfos stops being cute.

There is a rhythm to all of their attack patterns that can be internalized with only an hours of play, so you'll know when they attack before they even make a move.

Stabbing in general is very effective. There's a certain rhythm of stabbing (with the Biggoron Sword/Giant's Knife) that Stalfos are borderline helpless against. I often coincidentially managed to catch them midair when they attempted to jump away and I sometimes even had Link hit them 3 times back to back perfectly right when they dropped their guard.

You can circle them as well, especially as Child Link! Their sword arm is unprotected, so when you attack them from this side they are helpless. Oddly enough it is the exact same side the Megaton Hammer targets when performing a horizontal swing and it can bypass a Stalfos' defenses.

When you go for Stabbing, equipping the Iron Boots actually gives you an advantage since you can always press towards the Stalfos without moving from your position.

Lunges

You'll find that Stalfos often jump back and perform a Lunge. In fact all their Lunges at close range are prepared by jumping back first. This can both be parried with the Stab, as well as with a Lunge. The latter is far easier to time: start your Lunge roughly when the Stalfos starts theirs. Generally, I recommend that you parry with a Lunge and only use the Stab as a last-ditch effort when you are suprised, since that's when it is the easiest to time. After whiffing your Lunge would be a good example. When you parry their Lunge with yours there is a significant chance they'll execute another Lunge right when touching the ground, leading to more free parries, leading to less Stalfos.

If you do not feel safe doing this, simply dodge to the left and then press towards their direction while performing a Lunge. It's safer, but less cool and tends to not work reliably.

You will get into a situation where a Stalfos gets knocked back at an angle after a Lunge Parry and you simply do not have the time for Link to realign himself to parry/dodge their next immediate Lunge. Execute another Jump Attack anyway to dodge forward.

You will also encounter situations where both you and the Stalfos miss and then both of you stand there, looking at each other dumbfounded over your shoulders. Break the awkward silence with a horizontal slize.

Because of their range and N64 jank, they sometimes clip through your shield with their Lunges and damage you nontheless. Not that you'd need a shield against these wimps, right?

You can easily roll under their lunge if you want to humiliate them a bit before drawing your sword 8-)

Blocking

Sometimes when they block your attack they slide back straight a few inches with dust trails to their feet. If this is the case do an alternating chain of Stabs and Lunges or just a straight Lunge combo. Do this because there's a significant chance that they'll be in a sort of stun-lock if you keep the pressure on. Your sword clips through their shield eventually with a Lunge (everyone's shield's janky, not just yours :) ). If you guessed wrong and they aren't stun-locked or they decide to snap out of it, your attack misses, but for some reason they always give you enough time to recover until they try to hit you in the back. Giving you enough time to, you guessed it, Stab to parry or prevent their backstabbing by hitting their shield.

Sometimes they also just show off their shield 3 times in a row. I count that as a taunt. Do the above paragraph to punish them and remind them to take this fight seriously.

Other

As long as you are locked on, other Stalfos only very rarely attack you. Just dodge away when you are in a crowd. The time inbetween defeating a Stalfos and targetting the next one is the most unpredictable and every failed targetting attempt can be a death sentence. Make sure to always have enough distance between you and the Stalfos when not locked on.

If you back a Stalfos into a wall they jump over you like a Dinolfos/Lizalfos. After this they are likely to attack, giving you an opportunity for a close-range parry.

If you want to get rid of them fast, Ice Arrows are your best choice, since they damage and freeze them in place simultaniously. It takes about 3 Lunges from anything as powerful as the Master Sword to off them. You can be quite aggressive with Stalfos if you know what you're doing and decimate them suprisingly swiftly.

If you want to practise them, a good spot would be the Forest Temple gauntlet for the Bow. Equip Iron Boots and Broken Giant's Knife and teach them pain. Just don't forget to bring magic and Farore's Wind if you go with 3 hearts as well.

Some Stalfos have two lifes and rebuild themselves after being defeated once. They are vulnerable to all attacks right when they are reforming, so bully them with a charged Spin Attack or whatever you like.

Child Link's Boomerang bypasses their defenses.

Ranged attacks are the safest way to fight them, but they are resource dependent.

Gerudos

Gerudo Warriors are hard to deal with. They attack quite swiftly. Contrary to the Stalfos, you cannot fight against them as offensively and even when parrying you have to predict rather than react. They have a rhythm to their attacks as well.

You can parry their lunge. Yes, the one that knocks you down and gets you jailed. The beginning and the end of their lunge seems invincible, but the entire middle is vulnerable to all attacks: Lunges, Stabs, Slizes, everything. The vertical chop is the optimal option if you do not feel secure. At worst you receive damage but won't be knocked out. You just have to be couragous - or insane - to approach them rather than dodge when they charge up their Lunge.

The Megaton Hammer's attack hitboxes last a lot longer than other weapons'. So this is a good option to parry their lunge, since you can hardly attack too early. I mean it, they get damaged even when you are in your recovery frames, it's quite odd.

When you are VERY close to them, the Megaton Hammer's side swing bypasses their block. This is risky to do however. Randomly attack when approaching them to push them into a defensive strategy, otherwise you will eat cold steel before landing a hit.

The Biggoron Sword/(Broken) Giant's Knife can bypass their defenses sometimes because jank and SPEED, but your best option is still to wait for them to attack.

When you position yourself correctly mid-range you can also reliably Jump Attack them. You have to hit them with the very tip of your weapon.

When using the Hookshot they'll dodge it with a jump towards you and punish you. If you however feign a shot by canceling it you have a small window to stun them, but it's VERY hard and you better wait for them to lunge or roll forward to drop their guard.

They can be left confused after some attacks like rolls or lunges when you dodge behind them, giving you the perfect chance to hit them from behind.

Dark Link

Dark Link is forced to slow down his movement to a crawl when you equip the Iron Boots! There are several tactics to defeat him, but he is very inconsistent in his behaviour and some tactics might work one time and then not the next for no apparent reason. I remember being able to use bombs at some point, but I cannot recall exactly how the hell I did this. I think I just timed my throws well while backing off constantly. There was also this YouTube channel that revealed that when you block Dark Link's attacks with your shield, he is reeling a bit sometimes, giving you a chance for a Jump-Attack, which also works half the time in my experience. Speedrunners use Deku Nuts in a specific way and the other tactics are well known.

Redeads/Gibdos

Redeads/Gibdos won't attack you when you move slowly/don't swing your weapons (shoutouts to Nighplasmage54).

For fighting Redeads and especially Gibdos what you want to do is to first carefully come close and swing your sword through the air until they screech to coax them away from their home position. Back off and you'll see that they walk back to their home position and turn their back on you. That's when they are the most vulnerable! Lunge at them from behind and relentlessly attack them from behind until they are down. If you Lunge at them in their standing position they'll always freeze you midair and there's a chance they'll dodge or even grab you despite you being in the air. If you combo them from the front there is also a good chance that they'll grab you for apparently no reason; so stay behind them! It is their gaze that paralyzes you. Stay out of their view (backstabbing) and you are golden.

A much faster, but more difficult way is to hookshot their head, so once you pulled yourself towards them you end up midair, giving you a small opportunity to do a midair Jump Attack, instantly defeating them with anything more powerful than the Kokiri Sword/Broken Giant's Knife. Once one Redead is dead, the other Redeads come to mourn and won't attack you. Gibdos seem to not do this.

Leevers

Unsurprisingly, Leevers (sand plants) target your current location, which they home in on in straight lines when they spawn, so you avoid them by simply moving out of the way once they home in on that position. When running simply move diagonally to where you want to go and then course correct after they spawn, misleading them and get some extra distances with rolling. While fighting you can avoid them almost reliably by circle-strafing a targetted enemy and sidehopping when they still get too close for comfort.

Shoutouts to the mod "Master of Time" for telling me that Leevers avoid walls consistently, making every wall a safezone!

Dinolfos(/Lizalfos)

Dinolfos are swift. Attack them and they either dodge backwards or leap over you at which point you are almost guaranteed to get hit because the camera spasms out. Combined with Link's slow turning after a strike, dodging/parrying becomes hard to execute, simply because the A-Button does something else than you want it to. The Hook-/Longshot is useless as they jump over it. Their jumping ability is so great that they essentially cheat and gain invincibility even though both the blood and hit particle effects occured. The only way to hit them without limited resources or quick-spins is getting very, very close. Do not hit them yet, just walk up to them, lick their chin and then strike. That way they are tricked into starting an attack on their own which is the only time they are vulnerable and locked in place. Their strikes are fairly slow compared to your stabs and so you are guaranteed hits without getting damaged yourself. Even better, when you stab a Dinolfos up close this way they are likely to start another attack each time, allowing you to perform long parry combos.

You can also dodge their attack when the opportunity arises. If you sidehop/strafe behind their field of vision after their attack, they'll lose sight of you and stand there confused for a VERY long time, giving you a free attack window. Contrary to Stalfos, Dinolfos love to backstab you in groups so be careful and dodge away from ones you aren't targetting.

With some practise you can relentlessly hunt them even they jump over you. You have to be always moving towards them and stab when close enough. After a jump they likely attack, dropping their guard.

Anything with range >= Master Sword range however can catch them offguard when performing a Lunge.

Lizalfos tend to be rather helpless against Adult Link because of their weaker dodging reflexes, while Dinolfos certainly do not consider themselfs Lizalfos and do what they want.

Iron Knuckles

They can be difficult to deal with in groups, especially on ice. You can chip away their health with explosives but you can also move towards them in circular motions. Imagine an 8 and in the upper circle are the Iron Knuckles. The lower circle is the way you approach them, coaxing them into attacking. Do NOT attack them first, they'll hit you. Only directly after they attack are they able to be safely damaged due to their relatively large recovery window.

Like with drawing an 8, you may switch to the other (here upper) circle at the point where both circles meet. It's not exactly that spot, a bit later actually, since you need to avoid potential horizontal axe swipes, which have great range, but the point is to be halfway behind the Iron Knuckles after they attack (sort of more to their side than right behind them, if you attack them straight from behind, they may perform an undodgeable QUICKSPIN!!!). Those tanks turn very slowly, giving you room for a Jump Attack and even multiple stabs. Once they lose their armour they are staggered each time they are hit, so do not be afraid to become more aggressive and attack first (they are also vulnerable to arrows now without that armour). Keep in mind however that they are capable of blocking your attacks with their axe if you spam attacks which puts you in grave danger.

Also don't use the Hookshot on them if you can avoid it...

Bonus

Link's rolling animation gives you invincibility to all threats:https://www.reddit.com/r/truezelda/comments/pbmx51/ocarina_of_time_rolling_invincibility_explained/

You can destroy the projectiles of both Deku Scrubs/Sellers and Oktoroks with any of your attacks. Use the Hammer to force all hostile Dekus out of their holes that are currently loaded.

EDIT: Tiny Floormasters that grab your throat can be killed easily with the Hookshot.

I recommend anyone to play OoT (3D Zelda in general) without shields when possible! It forces you to be more active, engaged and skilled in combat. I also actually recommend playing with the Broken Giant's Knife! It's range is tiny but you quickly get used to it. It is the perfect compromise in terms of speed and damage for more balanced gameplay. You can use the Megaton Hammer as a second melee weapon with the Broken Giant's Knife being swift, but weak, and the Hammer being powerful, but slow, which creates an interesting battle dynamic and strategic decision making as to what to use and when. Just keep in mind that Freezards are invulnerable to the Broken Knife and require the Hookshot to be damaged until the Hammer!

Since the browser laughs at me when searching this topic I thought I might as well make an article for anyone who would be interested in the future.

Link's roll move in OoT does have invincibility frames (i-frames) in its animation. The reason it appears to hardly work is that the i-frames are very, very late. So late in fact that they appear to go slightly beyond the rolling animation.

When performing a roll, the i-frames start roughly after Link's head touches the ground and stop when he resumes his standard running animation. The first half of the roll is not invulnerable, but the latter half including the animation of standing up and converting to the normal running cycle is.

So as a reactionary move the roll's invincibility is useless because of this big wind-up. If you know how to time it however you can run through predicted traps/attacks to the point of absurdity. Link might make pain noises but he won't take any damage for about an entire second.

For practise I recommend starting out rolling against fire walls in the Fire Temple to get a feel for when exactly you won't take damage (although you'll still be knocked back). After that, practise rolling over lava in the rope bridge room of the Fire Temple between nearby safe zones to see how far you can roll without taking damage.

EDIT: In retrospect, you'd rather want to practise lava rolling in Dodongo's Cavern so you don't have to deal with a timelimit without the Red Tunic, sorry.

So, I really want to play OoT. But, shall it replay now on N64 - or wait til it probably/hopefull will come for Switch??

So I have recently startet playing ocarina of time,I just have a simple question about the kokiri armor: what are the benefits of wearing it, like the goronia armor makes you life in the heat and the Zora armor probably does something with water( I haven’t Reached the water temple jet, I’m still stuck in the fire temple) but what does the kokiri armor do? Like what would be my disadvantages if I would decide to play everything that’s past the water temple in the Zora armor?

Y’all, go listen to the song Atmosphere by Marc E. Bassy. Navi has an appearance and I got so excited when I heard it lol

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https://preview.redd.it/8lhs55ronql61.jpg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=54f798072fc0ef7b9ff7335c73b212b40a1e4822

Im trying to 100% the game but only with 3 hearts and I was trying to give skull kid the skull mask, but he wont talk to me. Do I have to play Sarias song with him (to get the piece of heart) to get him to talk to me and buy the mask? Im trying to get all masks and the deku nut upgrade with the mask of truth. If anyone knows thatd be wonderful ✊

I don’t know how I did this to myself but I’m a key short in the fire temple. I’ve obtained and apparently used all three keys I’ve found in walkthroughs but don’t have a key to open the door at the top of the fire-block-elevator-thing.

Did I somehow screw myself?

I'm on my first playthrough in years and just noticed Impa has drawings plastered all over the walls of his house describing ways to use certain weapons. I really like this little detail hehe.

Hey guys! I just started playing OOT on my 3ds and I am having an incredibly hard time using the hook shot as adult link trying to get pieces of heart in kakariko village including at 1) the windmill 2) the barn 3) and from the guy on the roof. Any advice on how to get these pieces of heart?