“My Seed Is Broken!” (Glitchless Logic) - Solutions to completing randomized runs of Ocarina of Time can sometimes be unintuitive. While your seed may appear to be unbeatable, this isn’t often the case. Thanks to developers much smarter than myself, OoTR’s logic is surprisingly robust. Listed below are some common sources of confusion, grouped by location. If you don’t mind spoiling the rest of your playthrough, instructions to finding your next step will be listed here.
If you follow these steps and still need help, you’re welcome to ask for support in the #questions-gameplay channel of our Discord Server. Make sure to provide your seed and setting string along with any important details about the issue. If it turns out you have indeed encountered a logical flaw, kind members of our team will report issues from there.
Other Logic Pages
This section of the Wiki is for Glitchless Logic; for more information on Glitched and Entrance Randomizer Logic, please view the Glitched and Entrance Randomizer sections of the Wiki.
It is also to document unusual logic you absolutely must know in a seed to finish a randomizer seed. Racers and individuals who wish to contribute to the randomizer by adding features with logical requirements might want or need to be familiar with the logic on a deeper level. They should view the Advanced Logic page for a better understanding of some of the more difficult to comprehend, but unnecessary to know by heart, logic quirks.
Vanilla Help
For a quick refresher on the most basic aspects of Ocarina of Time, you should take a look at a couple of Getting Started pages for Ocarina of Time.
If you are new to randomizer, you really should reacquaint yourself with vanilla before playing. If you haven't played Ocarina of Time in the past few weeks, even if you've played it many times in the past, it is recommended you give vanilla a quick playthrough again before attempting randomizer. If you get stuck while going through vanilla you should use a guide such as the StrategyWiki or Zelda Dungeon guides. You must know how to beat vanilla to even have a chance of beating randomizer.
Minuet of Meadow item
Stand outside the Forest Temple as an adult.
Wake up Talon
Wake up Talon with a white Cucco from the Weird Egg.
Entering the Castle
Move the Milk Crates to create a platform you can jump off of to reach the sewer hole along the castle wall. Talon must be woken up first.
Reaching Zelda (Zelda's Lullaby location)
Enter the Castle during the day, then avoid the guards Line of Sight.
Malon won't teach her song (Epona's Song location)
As a child, show her your Ocarina during the day.
Song of Storms item
Show an Ocarina to the Windmill operator as an adult.
Obtaining the Sun's Song item
Obtained via the Royal Family's Tomb at the Kakariko Graveyard which can be accessed by playing Zelda's Lullaby outside it.
Spinning Pottery
The spinning Goron Pot is activated by lighting the torches surrounding it. This can be accomplished by lighting sticks from Darunia's chamber OR by casting Din's Fire.
The Spinning Pot has 3 faces - Happy, Neutral, and Mad. Only the Happy face gives a randomized reward; Neutral give 3 bomb refills and Mad gives 3 green rupees.
Get Scarecrow’s Song
In order to use the Scarecrow’s Song, you must teach it to Bonooru as a child and then remind him again as an adult.
Stuck without warp songs
If you save and quit outside the dungeon, reloading the game will put you at the Temple of Time (if adult) or Link's house (if child).
Opening Grottos Without Bombs
Any grotto you can open with Bombs may also be opened with Hammer, however some grottos will only reveal themselves when you play Song of Storms.
Misunderstood Vanilla Mechanics
A lot of randomizer still requires you to meet the vanilla requirements to do certain things. It just so happens that sometimes vanilla takes shortcuts in how it does its logic since it's impossible to do certain things before other events, and sometimes it cannot take those shortcuts due to other reasons. These are the most common issues people have coming over to randomizer from vanilla.
Skull Kid Ignores the Skull Mask
Skull Kid won’t buy Skull Mask until you befriend him with Saria’s Song.
Saria Missing from Sacred Forest Meadow
Saria won't teach you her song until you have Zelda's Letter or later in the child trade sequence in your inventory. You need to wake up Talon and obtain the Letter before you can obtain Saria's Song.
Ocarina of Time and Song of Time Cutscenes
This is the location near the Castle Town draw bridge that would normally play Zelda & Impa's escape cutscene. You must possess all 3 Spiritual Stones when approaching the Draw Bridge as a child to enable the Ocarina of Time location. Zora's Sapphire alone is not enough.
Can't Find the Running Man
You must possess all 3 Spiritual Stones in order for him to be found running around Hyrule Field. Zora's Sapphire alone is not enough.
Open the Door of Time
Playing the Song of Time is the only requirement to opening the Door of Time. This means you only need a Fairy Ocarina and the Song of Time. You don't need the Spiritual Stones.
- In 3.0 and prior, if you warp to the Temple of Time with Prelude of Light, you must exit and re-enter the Temple for the Song of Time to work correctly.
Big Poe Hunt
Without Epona there is a 1/4 (25%) chance of a Big Poe spawning as you pass by their spawn areas. While on Epona there is a 100% chance that the poe that spawns will be a Big Poe. Due to this, default logic does not expect you to hunt big poes without Epona. You may be expected by logic to find them as the random contents of bottles you find if the Big Poe Count setting is set low enough for them to matter.
Burning Village/Nocturne of Shadow Cutscene
The Forest, Fire, and Water Medallions are needed and you have to enter the village as Adult.
Requiem of Spirit
Contrary to what's expected, the song you would acquire as an adult after leaving Spirit Temple can also be collected as a child. It is the same requirements as vanilla (Exit Spirit Temple) but normal runs through the game always have you visit as an adult, so this may catch some players unaware if they have never used sequence breaks before. If playing Entrance Randomizer, exit whichever dungeon is placed at Desert Colossus.
Zelda Light Arrow Cutscene
Entering the Temple of Time with the Shadow and Spirit medallions in your possession will give you the item that has replaced the Light Arrows location.
Vanilla Mechanics Changed by Randomizer
Randomizer has also changed some vanilla mechanics in an attempt to make randomization of certain elements more valuable. If you are very familiar with Ocarina of Time you may want to take note of these following differences.
Ocarina Memory Game
Randomizer changed this mini-game to only need to be done once, and only with the 5 note version of the mini-game to obtain the item.
Malon or Talon Missing from Ranch
Malon and Talon normally appear in Lon Lon Ranch after you have spoken to Zelda and gotten Zelda's Letter. Due to Weird Egg being able to be shuffled some changes have had to be made to this to avoid softlocks. Waking Talon up at Hyrule Castle with the Cucco from the Weird Egg and obtaining Zelda's Letter will have him appear at the ranch. Malon will also appear at the ranch after this if Weird Egg is not shuffled. If Weird Egg is shuffled, she will not appear at the ranch until you have obtained the item that replaces the Weird Egg from her.
Dampe's Heart-Pounding Gravedigging Tour
Dampe is no longer a random number of attempts and will dig up the Heart Piece on the first attempt. You don't even have to be over a dirt patch. There is also a bug in vanilla where if you leave the area before picking up the Heart Piece it is lost forever. The randomizer has mostly solved this issue, just don't die before picking up the Heart Piece. This seems to do the same thing the vanilla bug does, but isn't handled properly by the randomizer yet.
Sheik at Temple
The Sheik cutscene at the Master Sword pedestal to obtain Prelude of Light has been changed from beating Forest Temple to obtaining the Forest Medallion. Once you have the Forest Medallion, approaching the pedestal as adult either from the door of time, or from pulling the sword out as child will give you the reward.
Forest
This area covers Kokiri Forest, The Lost Woods, and The Sacred Forest Meadow.
Closed Forest
If you have chosen to play with the Open Forest setting set to "Closed Forest" then you are not intended to leave the forest until you have beaten Gohma in the Great Deku Tree. Even if you an ocarina, bombs or a Silver Scale, you must not leave the forest through the Lost Woods or a warp song. Your Kokiri Sword will be somewhere in these forest areas, and the shop will have a repeatably purchasable Deku Shield for you even with Shopsanity active.
Your Slingshot may appear anywhere in these forest areas or The Great Deku Tree.
You may have to access hidden grottos. In version 5.1 and prior you were required to do this without any hint as to where they are located, but as of 5.2 you should obtain the Stone of Agony before you are expected to find these locations, as long as you don't activate the trick that removes the SoA requirement.
If you are playing with Tokensanity, you can access the Gold Skulltulas in the dirt patches by going into the Lost Woods and jump slashing the bushes outside of the Goron City warp. This will release bugs that you can catch in a bottle and use in the dirt patches. Since your sword can be in one of these dirt patches, you'll need to keep this in mind.
Kakariko Village
Rear Entrance to Impa's House as Child
Grab a chicken and take it to the incomplete house. Toss it up to the top of the pile of bricks and climb up after it. Once on top of the pile of bricks with the Chicken you can lift up the chicken and fly across to the Scaffolding, from here you follow behind the carpenter until you reach a good position to jump towards the entrance above the chicken coop.
Shooting Gallery gives 50 rupees
The Fairy Bow/Quiver is required to win the special prize. Otherwise you will receive 50 rupees.
Can’t get onto rooftops without Longshot
Yes you can. Get a little closer and use the Hookshot.
Draining Kakariko Well
Play the Song of Storms to the Windmill Operator as a child.
- Project 64 is known to have issues with this, among other things. For the purposes of this project, we can only recommend using a different emulator such as Bizhawk or Retroarch. This bug most frequently arises when trying to drain the Well at night; attempting it during the day is less likely to cause this crash.
Freestanding PoH in Windmill
The freestanding heart piece in the windmill doesn't always require an ocarina or the Song of Time. You can use the boomerang to grab the item here. There is also a trick to reach it with no other items required.
Gerudo Fortress/Valley
Traversing the Gerudo Valley Broken Bridge
You can cross the Broken Bridge as an Adult by using either Epona to jump it or using the Longshot on the sign above the gate on the other side.
Entering Gerudo Training Grounds without being captured
You must possess the Gerudo Membership Card and also rescue all of the Carpenters they have captured. If the Gerudo Membership Card is shuffled in to the Item Pool then you'll only need to find the card, you don't need to rescue the Carpenters to access the area.
Getting caught without a Hookshot
Should you be caught by a Gerudo Guard, either inside during combat or outside by being seen, and do not posses a Hookshot, you will be thrown into the valley outside the tent rather into the jail cell from which you could not escape.
Horse archery NPC is missing or won't let you play the mini-game
To play this minigame you'll need the Fairy Bow, Epona and Gerudo Membership Card. It must also be day time.
Gerudo Training Grounds
Lava room without Longshot
You can reach the torch at the end of this room using only the Hookshot.
Timed boulder room without Longshot
The target on the ceiling is just within range of the Hookshot if you stand directly under it. A wallmaster can also lift you up into the rupee if it’s the last one you need to collect.
Goron City
Reach Goron City from Lost Woods without Bombs
You can ignite the Bomb Flowers behind the boulders using Din’s Fire. Alternatively, if Adult Link destroys the boulders—with Hammer, Strength, or Bow—they'll be destroyed in the past so Child Link can enter.
Get large rolling Goron to relinquish goods
Bomb the Goron in the dark tunnel near the sign (Bomb/Bombchu).
In version 4.0 and older the Large Rolling Goron also requires you to be in possession of a Bomb Bag
Boulder Maze without Bombs or Hammer
Silver Guantlets are effective at clearing a path to each of the chests in the room. This will take some time, however.
Zora’s Domain
Access With Silver Scale
If you have the Silver Scale you can access Zora's Domain as child from Lake Hylia
Need Blue Fire to unfreeze King Zora/Zora shop
If you have access to Ganon’s Castle, Blue Fire can be found in Water Trial. Blue Fire may be a purchasable item for 300 rupees in shops.
Lake Hylia
Go fishing
You require an 8 pound fish as a Child or a 10 pound fish as an Adult. You must toss the lure in deep enough water to entice fish to bite. There's a minimum depth required for the mini-game to work, if you toss the Lure in very shallow water the fish may swim around the Lure but never bite.
Lake Hylia - Shooting the Sun with an arrow
You can reach the tall rectangle island without filling the lake by using Scarecrow's Song and Longshot. You may not need to complete the Water Temple and raise the water level at Lake Hylia to aquire the item. The arrow must be fired at the sun during the early morning as per the written instructions on the stone platform you must fire from.
Death Mountain Crater
Reach the lower Exit
From the top of the tall ladder you can use the Hover Boots to hover over the boulder blocking the shortcut to Goron City (lower exit). You can also use the Hover Boots at the bottom of the ladder to bypass the Boulder.
Reach the bottom area for Bolero of Fire and access to Fire Temple
From the top of the tall ladder you can use the Hover Boots to hover over the boulder blocking the shortcut to Goron City (lower exit), and across the dilapidated bridge to reach the Warp Platform & Fire Temple. You can also use the Hover Boots at the bottom of the ladder to bypass the Boulder.
- You can also reach this bottom area with the Longshot by jumping from the upper area onto the lava platforms below and shooting a wooden plank to pull yourself across the pool of lava.
Deku Tree
Access F3 Without Slingshot
You are not required to have the slingshot to get to the top floor of the Deku Tree. In fact in Master Quest you don't get the slingshot until you have climbed all the way up the tree in the first place. Skulltulas won't rush you if you are not moving. You can sneak past them while they are not looking at you.
Two Chests In Slingshot Room
In vanilla deku tree there are two chests in the Slingshot room. The first is the obvious one that has the slingshot, but there are vines to the left of it that you can climb to access a second chest that normally only has a recovery heart.
Inside Jabu Jabu's Belly
First Switch
The switch on the ceiling in the first room of Jabu Jabu's Belly can be hit using explosives.
Dodongo's Cavern
Forest Temple
Get outside without Song of Time or Bow
With Hover Boots you can float to the door connecting the large block-pushing room with the courtyard.
Cross to the other courtyard via Well
With Gold Scale or Iron Boots you can cross from one courtyard to the other through the well
Can’t push large colored blocks as adult
In the Forest Temple the Goron’s Bracelet is required to push these blocks, even as adult. Link only put on gauntlets to keep his hands from drying out.
Fire Temple
Can’t push large colored blocks as adult
In the Fire Temple the Goron’s Bracelet is required to push these blocks, even as adult. Link only put on gauntlets to keep his hands from drying out.
Reach Volvagia without Hammer
With Hover Boots equipped, it’s a simple matter of floating over to the boss door. That said, you’ll still need the Hammer to defeat the boss.
Skip the topmost locked door
Similarly to Volvagia, you can skip the topmost locked door by using Hover boots to float over to the pillar. Then you can use the Hammer to open the door leading to the Highest Goron and Hammer Chest.
Water Temple
Boss Key chest without Bombs or Goron’s Bracelet
Use the Hover Boots to reach the chest.
Getting past the timed gate without Longshot
After shooting the eye switch, crossing the gap with Hover Boots will get you past the gate before it closes.
Center room’s Gold Skulltula without Longshot
Cast Farore’s Wind inside the center room. Raise the water to its highest level and perform Farore's Wind again to return to the warp point. Swim to the surface to reach the Gold Skulltula.
I can’t raise the water level
This is only relevant prior to version 4.0 of randomizer
With the water level lowered, jump down to the second level of the central structure. This may require savewarping to the beginning of the dungeon to reach. Use the Hookshot to climb onto the top level. With a well-spaced rolling jump you should be able to reach the ledge where you can raise the water to its highest level. This isn't required but it's a handy time saver.
Shadow Temple
First silver rupee room without Hookshot
You can get to the raised platform in the corner of the room by using the Hover Boots from the nearby low wall.
Spike floor room without Longshot
Backflip onto the chest spawned in the middle of the room. From there you can use the Hookshot to reach the upper ledge.
Reach the boat without Goron’s Bracelet
You can bypass pushing the large block by shooting the top of the ladder with a Hookshot.
Reach Bongo Bongo without the Fairy Bow
Play the Scarecrow’s Song to summon Pierre. Shoot his face with the Longshot to get to the other side.
Spirit Temple
Lower metal bridge on child side without Boomerang
You can just barely hit the switch with a well-placed slingshot shot. Alternatively, you can hit the crystal switch with a well-timed Bombchu placement in the opposite direction. Hopefully you’ll hit it, or you’ll have to go out and buy more Bombchus.
Map chest without Din’s Fire or Magic
Child Link is perfectly capable of lighting the torches using only a Deku Stick.
Collect all the silver rupees in the boulder room without Hover Boots
You can reach the floating rupee by jumping into the boulder with a jump slash, or even without hittng the boulder if you time the jump slash properly.
Silver Gauntlets chest from adult side using Longshot
With a Longshot, shoot the chest opposite from the Mirror Shield chest to gain access to its contents and the end of child-side.
Boss Key Chest
The Eye Switch can be accessed by hitting the fake door with something to make it fall over. You do not necessarily need to destroy the fake door.
Ganon’s Castle
Spirit Trial without Fire Arrows
A precise shot of an arrow through the torch will burn the web to reveal the sunlight. Or moonlight. Maybe it’s a big lamp, idk.
Water Trial Blue Fire
With your bridge requirement set to Open you may be required to use a bottle to bring Blue Fire to thaw King Zora or, if you have shopsanity active, to open the Zora Shop as adult if you can't access it as child.
Knowing the Way with the Spoiler Log
The spoiler log contains information about your personally randomized copy of the game and can be very helpful when looking for important items you've missed. It takes only a few steps:
Website Seeds
Versions 1.0 - 3.0 and Standalone Download
- Open the spoiler log generated alongside your ROM. It should be formatted as
OoT_SETTINGSTR_SEED_Spoiler.txt. - Scroll down to the section labeled Way of the Hero.
- Ensure that you have collected all the items listed in the section, as they are essential to beating the game.