Our Lord Ditto died for your sins so that His prophet, this regular ordinary human child, could rebuild a society for Our Blessed Trainers to return to.
Our Lord Ditto died for your sins so that His prophet, this regular ordinary human child, could rebuild a society for Our Blessed Trainers to return to.
Started finally properly playing Ocarina of Time via the Ship of Harkinian PC port (and in Japanese, for immersion practice)! Over the years, I think I’ve watched at least half a dozen streamers play through the first couple of dungeons or so, but this will be my first time experiencing more of the game, and I’m right on the cusp of that new material having finished Dodongo’s Cavern and picked up my two Great Fairy Fountain upgrades. Thankfully, my knowledge of the Adult Link portion of the game is very limited, so I’ll be experiencing a lot of that completely blind.
At any rate, even though a good chunk of what I’ve played is stuff I’ve seen before, I’m really enjoying myself. I love the sense of wonder and exploration that you get skulking around the alleys of Hyrule Castle Town or wending your way through the Lost Woods. I can’t remember where it was, but I read/watched something recently talking about how fixed camera angles are a legitimate artistic tool and not just a relic of a resource-constrained past, and the Temple of Time exterior is a perfect illustration. You just wouldn’t get that same sense of awe and foreboding with a standard 3rd person camera. It’s really making me want to go tackle the original three Resident Evil games, since I’ve played all the mainline games from RE4 onward including the REmakes (and excluding RE9, so far) but haven’t had the guts to tackle the fixed camera titles. Honestly, even more than the fixed camera, I think it’s the limited saving that has me quaking in my boots, since I tend to be a save-every-thirty-seconds kind of scaredycat.
As far as my Ship of Harkinian set up goes, I have only a very minimal set of Quality of Life tweaks applied:
and then I have the resolution and FPS cranked up + LOD and draw distance disabled, but it’s otherwise a vanilla experience—no texture packs or major modifications.
I’m trying to use guides as little as possible, so I’m taking lots of notes so I know where to backtrack and which items I’ve collected where. I’d love to have a very spoiler-reduced checklist kind of thing that would just tell me, say, how many collectibles are in a given location, and allow me to progressively drill down in something like the below structure to minimize future spoilers and give me a chance to attempt find things on my own if I know they’re in a certain area without risking missing something completely because I tripped some progression flag:
If anyone knows of something that already exists along these lines, definitely let me know! And if not, who knows…maybe if this playthrough turns me into an OoT superfan, I’ll end up making it myself.
Anyway, Ship of Harkinian is an incredibly cool project that’s emblematic of the wonderful things that people can accomplish working together without a hint of a profit motive. As the quote on their homepage proudly states, “Proof that the unofficial option is sometimes the best option”—Nintendo could never. I only listed a few tweaks, but there are literally hundreds of little flags you can toggle, and extensive support for randomized playthroughs and mods. Probably just about anything about the original game you can think of that you’d want to change, there’s a way to do so.
I’m an avid Ocarina of Time player. It’s one of my comfort games, and it codifies many races and features that are mainstays of the series now. I’m also pretty hyped about Ship of Harkinian as well as other N64 decomps.
There are some in-game UI/UX hints that will help keep you spoiler free. I’ll try to keep any spoilers vague.
I use emulator save states because it’s 2026, so no shame.
Some random things that come to mind. I keep it to advice, but spoiler'd just in case you want to be completely blind.
Thank you for all the tips, especially the one about the original song! I knew about it as a vector for weird glitches, but not its actual gameplay function. As for the 20x Skulltula Token reward, unfortunately Ship of Harkinian won’t make my controller rumble for some reason, but thankfully there’s an option for a visual indicator (they really do have everything!) and I’ve already used it to find two locations that would have otherwise been impossible. Well, maybe 1.5 is more accurate…see the spoiler below.
On Secret Holes
The first one was the one right past the tree in Kakariko Village. I’d just scored my 500 rupee bag, so a cool 200 rupees was the perfect reward!
The second was in front of the entrance to Goron City, which I always thought was suspicious since even before I got the Stone of Agony I’d worked out that a circle of stones is an indication of a secret hole, but I bombed the absolute hell out of that platform to no avail. What gives? The only thing I could think of is that I need to place the bomb in such a way that I destroy all of the stones simultaneously, but the blast radius doesn’t seem big enough.
Also, unfortunately save states are pretty jank in Ship of Harkinian and not officially supported (I thought I’d permanently borked my save right before the third dungeon and was panicking for a good few minutes), but they’re still useful for when you need to do stuff like repeat one of the minigames without having to farm a bunch of rupees. I haven’t really felt the need to use them much, thankfully.
After thinking on it, I guess one justification behind always loading you at the starting zone is the fact that
Save Location Speculation (+ a question)
the Lost Woods are connected to Goron City and Zora’s Domain once you’ve obtained each of their respective items, so you can travel to those places relatively quickly. I haven’t played any of the 2D Zeldas yet (although I’d like to!) but it’s similar to the NES Super Mario Brothers titles and their warp pipes/warp whistles—there were no saves or passcodes, but a skilled player armed with game knowledge could get wherever they wanted to go pretty quickly.
Actually, speaking of the Lost Woods: can you reach Saria again after visiting her deep in the woods but before going to the Temple of Time with all the Spiritual Stones? I’d wanted to stop by just because it seemed like what I would do in Link’s position, even if it doesn’t actually unlock anything, but I can’t seem to get back to the maze no matter how many times I try (although everyone in Kokiri Forest still assures me that Saria is there waiting for me).
I’m glad I did try, though, because I realized that 1. I’d missed some upgrades because I was skim reading the Business Scrubs’ text (like I said, I’m playing in Japanese, so my skim reading skills aren’t the best and I didn’t realize that some are selling upgrades and not just refills) and 2. I stumbled into completing the second mask trading quest, but not before I’d also stumbled into getting a Deku Stick upgrade using said mask.
As for your extra tips:
Tips
Way ahead of you on the bean thing! I bought his entire stock out as soon as I could and I’ve planted all of the beans I could (still have two left).
Noted on early Lon Lon Ranch and the final cleanup. While I had heard about the Stone of Agony, I genuinely have no idea what you’re referring to in terms of songs that will help with item collection, so I’m curious to find out!
And that’s interesting about the 100% reward! I’ve heard that it’s a bit tedious and that most people just go for all of the “regular” rewards (which I think requires 50/100?), but I don’t actually know what the rewards are beyond maybe more wallet space and I have no idea what the 100% reward is. I guess I can save before I collect it and see what I think!
And here’s where I’m at, currently:
My progress + another question
I collected the last Spiritual Stone and am basically done scouring Hyrule:
Upgrades:
I have one burning question: can I return to Hyrule Castle Town after collecting the three Spiritual Stones without locking myself out of anything? As soon as I started to approach to go and get the next mask, it triggered a cutscene, which spooked me, so I reset. I was operating under the assumption that I’d be okay until I go into the Temple of Time and do the timey-wimey thing, but I don’t know if I get put on rails as soon as I let that cutscene play out. At the very least, I wanna go play my fifth song (presumably the Song of Time?) for that last frog in Zora’s River!
I have no idea if it’s possible to do this using only a save file, but I’d love to make a little program that will take your save file as input and tell you exactly how many Skulltulas you’re missing in each area, allowing you to view individual hints relevant to your current item loadout (so it won’t rob you of the opportunity to figure out things for yourself or burden you with irrelevant information). Ideally, it would be a series of increasingly specific hints to maximize the chance for the player to still feel some satisfaction for solving the puzzle. I would assume that there’s a flag in the save file for each individual Skulltula so the game can check if its token has been collected to prevent it from spawning, but I haven’t dug into the code yet.
Anyway, sorry for writing such a long comment! It’s been quite some time since I got really immersed in a game like this, and I really appreciate the advice you’ve already given! I remember hearing kids at school talking about Ocarina of Time and Majora’s Mask when they came out, but I never saw either with my own eyes, and so I only learned about them obliquely—characters, stages, and trophies in Super Smash Bros. Melee, retrospective comparisons with later games in the series like Wind Waker and Twilight Princess (the former of which I still need to beat, and the latter of which I still need to play), speedrunning glitches, and the like. It’s been so gratifying to finally get my hands on it and experience it for myself all these years later.
Don’t be sorry, and welcome to the club! Ocarina of Time was the first Zelda where the tech let it have a cinematic flair, much like Final Fantasy 7 or Metal Gear Solid for those franchises, and it clearly left a mark on all of us. Every Zelda from here to Breath of the Wild will follow a similar format. I also highly recommend Majora’s Mask after, both because it has it’s own unique charm and it has a Ship of Harkinian release as well.
First the burning question. There is no permanent lockout in this game. You can return to all items, side-quests, and map areas even at the very end of the game.
The cutscene (Zelda chase I think?) won’t lock you out, you just get an item.
Caveat...
There is one temporary thematic lock that will apply between using the stones until you beat the first Adult dungeon. I’m probably overselling this too, and you might only realize you were locked out when it’s unlocked for you again.
I’m probably overselling a bunch of this with vagueness, especially since Nintendo has been flagrantly spoiling this game for decades.
Save location mechanics
There are three spawn locations that depend on where you save in vanilla:
I think your speculation has merit, and I think the logic applies to the Temple of Time as an Adult too. This era of Zelda plays a little like Metroidvania where you progressively unlock more of the map to explore with the items and abilities you collect, so starting somewhere that makes it short to get to anywhere else makes sense to me.
IIRC there is also an achievement tracker inside Link’s house on the walls too.
Lost Woods entrance
Yes you can see Saria again. You will need to navigate the Lost Woods puzzle, but it doesn’t change.
You can get to the Lost Woods maze from the Kokiri Village. From the entrance of the village, it’s up the left side cliffs above Mido’s house. Follow the climbable vines and you will find the entrance log.
You can also talk to Saria anytime by playing her song. She acts as a hint in case you get stuck about what to do next. UX feature I forgot about.
Hints for the Lost Woods
There is a visual glitch that helps navigating most of the Lost Woods puzzle.
The entrance from the Lost Woods to the Sacred Meadow is...
…a North exit when you seemingly can’t go any further.
That info is in the save file, and Ship of Harkinian can show you how many there are and how many you have, but it also names every region and dungeon...
It’s under the Menu->Dev Tools->Save Editor->Flags, there’s a pulldown menu.
I don’t know if it is tracking specific skulltulas or just counts, but I think your hunch is correct. Lots of things are just flags in the save file.
I think the Water Temple’s reputation is a bit overblown. It’s a 3D puzzle manipulating the water levels. It can be a pain, especially if you fall somewhere you don’t want, but that’s hardly difficult. It’s the other thing in the Water Temple that scares me :scared: I recommend filling all your bottles with Fairies…
I’m not knowledgeable enough on the coding side to know if it’s a limitation, but Link to the Past is similar iirc so it might be a game design carry-over.