The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time was released in 1998, yet it still has its place in modern gaming discourse. It completely revolutionized combat in a 3D space, setting the foundation for just about every game to come. At the core of the journey 🌌is a story about growing up across time, filled with plenty of goodies to uncover here and there.
As Nintendo’s first fully realized 3D world, Ocarina of Time couldn’t afford to slip up🅺 and, to its credit, it real🎃ly doesn’t. Its design philosophy is timeless. Everyone loves a good adventure, which is exactly what Ocarina of Time is. At the same time, a go𒁏od adventure requires Hearts, and Ocarina of Time doesn’t make things easy for the uninformed.
10 Dampe’s Heart-Pounding Gravedigging Tour
Luck’s a dirty littl✅e bastard, but he rears hꦺis ugly head more than a few times in Zelda games. Look, RNG isn’t an inherently bad thing. It isn’t🍸 even bad here. But it’s annoying from a completionist’s perspective. Looking at games like a checklist, yeah, this one’s a pain. Even in a casual playthrough, it can be exhausting getting this piece.
Those fortunate enough will have Dampe dig up the Piece of Heart early on, but there is no way to reliably guarantee what Da🌌mpe is going to dig up. It’s pure chance, plain an𓃲d simple. That has its place, but it makes a Heart Piece like this difficult to get.
9 The Goron Urn
After lighting all the torches on the bottom floor of Goron City, the center urn will start spinning around. Link can then throw bombs into the urn to set it off. Link will then get a reward based off which of the urn’s three faces is facing forward after the explosion. It’s possible to find the sweet spot and tiꦉme it right, but it can be an immense challenge.
This is one of those Heart Pie𒆙ces that only gets more exhausting the worse a player does. It’s not uncommon to run out of bombs just trying to figure out where the urn’s sweet spot is. Muscle memory might make vets of the original think otherwise, but this is a challenging Heart Piece for a lot of newcomers.
8 Fishing Pond
Fishing in The Legend of Zelda is always a lot of fun. If you like fishing minigames. Fishing itself can be a very slow and methodical activity, which doesn’t exactly translate to a gaming mindset– especially not 🤪a modern one. Anyone who doesn’t want to indulge in Ocarina of Time will find catching a large enough fish f🐓or the Heart Piece exhausting.
Just figuring out how to fish can be a struggle in and of itself. Casting and reeling is simple enough, but there are nuances to keeping the fish on the line. The fish can be tired out, it can snap the line, and 🎶it can just be pain aggressive which can be harsh on the fingers. Fishing is fun. For those who like it.
7 Bottom Of The Lakeside Lab (Legitimate)
This Piece of Heart is intended as a secondary reward for the fishing minigame. Upon catching a 🌳large enough fish in the past to get the Heart Piece, players need to return in the future to catch an even larger fish in order to earn the Golden Scale. With the scale, players can now dive to the bottom of the Lakeside Lab.
For those who aren’t eager to cast their rod back into the fishing pond, this Piece of Heart happens to have a glitch that’s very easy to pull off. Dive to the bottom of the Lakeside Lab with Iron Boots on, Hookshot the bottom of the crate down there, and then unequip the Iron Boots whe𝔉n Link hits the box. The game will then mark the dive as complete.
6 50 Gold Skulltula
This one isn’t too bad and is one of the least challenging Heart Pieces in the game to get in the grand scheme of thi🅠ngs, but that’s the problem for some. Gold Skulltula hunting requires being observant and going out of one’s way, somꦑething most casual players won’t think to do.
The game litters enough Gold Skullꦉtula tokens💦 where players should be able to get 🅰most rewards, but💎 it can be a trial. Master Quest makes this one p꧟articularly nasty, shuffling around all the inner-d𝕴ungeon tokens to the point where it’s not unusual for someone to reach the end of the game still shy of 50.
5 Bombchu Bowling Alley
20 years of♑ mus🐭cle memory makes any minigame easy enough to get through, but those playing Ocarina of Time for the first time are more than♍ likely to find the Bombchu Bowling Alley exhausting. Not only does it house a Heart Piece, it also has a Bomb Bag upgrade, Bombchus, Rupees, Bombs– oh, and it’s all random.
Ocarina of Time loves iಌts RNG and this is the worst offender. Failing to get the Heart Piece when it shows up means having to shuffle through all the other prizes before it shows up again. It’s a harsh punishment, but at least Market Town h✤as a spot where Link can grind for rupees so he can keep playing.
4 Dampe’s Race
Even learning the layout of the race track doesn’t make this minigame any easier. Dampe tosses flames as he races ꦜahead, and it’s not easy to predict when they’ll fall. Playing it safe risks Link getting locked out, though, forcing players to take the risk if they want to keep up. Knowing the shortcut near the end helps save time, but not enough if players are struggling.
Coming back later on with the Longshoot can help considerably, though. The potential trial and error might not be worth the effort, but the torch near the exit can be hooked onto by Link, cutti🎉ng the entire last chunk of the race. Again, though, someone struggling to keep up likely won’t figure out where to hookshot from right away.
3 Horseback Archery (N64)
With the 3DS’ gyros♑cope aiming, this minigame is incredibly easy– and incredibly fun! The gyroscope is the way of the future, but all the Nintendo 64 had was a fairly stiff joystick and some… interesting aiming mechanics. Link’s aim is determined not by the point of his arrows, but by the blue stripꦿ on his bow. It’s easy enough to aim after that, but some don’t figure this out.
Horseback Archery, however, puts Link on Epona and has him shooting targets as they move. It’s tough, 💦and it more or less requires players get a Bullseye with each of their (limited) shots, but aiming while moving can be a ♈real challenge on the N64.
2 The Frog Concerto (As Intended)
This is an easyဣ enough Piece of Heart to get. After playing all the non-warp Ocarina songs for the frogs near Zora Domain, Link will be able to play a little concert with his new friends. Each frog represents a diff⛄erent note on the Ocarina and players were supposed to be learning whic🍨h was which while playing all those songs, but…
It’s easy enough to just look up the sequence for either the N64 or 3DS version, w🤡rite it down, and just brute force the minigame right out the gate. It works, but it’s not how it’s meant to be done. That said, it’s nice we can sort of cheat. It would be a time 🔜consuming – but very rewarding – Piece of Heart.
1 Treasure Chest Game (Early)
The Treasure Chest game is only meant to be cleared after players get the Lens of Truth, but most will likely try it once or twice before realizing t𒐪hat blind luck will get them nowhere. It is theoretically possible to reach the end without the Lens of Truth – in the sense that many things are possible – but that’s not going to happen.
The Lens of Truth illuminates each chest so that players can keep makinಞg steady progress to the Heart Piece. There’s just so much guessing involved that players are basically guaranteed to fail it without the Lens of Truth. Be wary of those who claim they’ve reached the end without it. For they are either lying, or hold untold power...