The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time Beginner Guide: Where to Start

The first hour of Ocarina of Time is famously gentle, right up until it isn't. The game drops you in Kokiri Forest with a fairy yelling at you, one jealous kid blocking the only path out, and basically zero instructions. Clear that part and everything after starts clicking into place. Here's the whole opening stretch, from your first sword swing to your first crossing of Hyrule Field.

Kokiri Forest First Steps

The game opens with Navi the fairy banging on your treehouse door. The Great Deku Tree has summoned you, and that's the whole quest for now. The problem is Mido, the self-appointed boss of the forest, standing guard on the path to the tree. He won't budge until you're carrying a sword and a shield. So that's job one: find both.

Grab the Kokiri Sword first (it's free)

Head up the hill to the Forest Training Center, the fenced-off patch near the Know-It-All Brothers' house. Work your way past the fences to the back wall and you'll find a little hole in the ground that Link can crawl through. That tunnel leads to a chest holding the Kokiri Sword.

One catch: there's a boulder rolling in a loop inside. It follows the same path every time, so just walk a few steps behind it and you're fine. Open the chest and you've got your blade. It's the only sword a kid can use, and it honestly carries you through the entire first half of the game.

Scrape together 40 rupees for the Deku Shield

The shield isn't free. Cross the little stream to the shop with the red roof and the Deku Shield is on the shelf for 40 rupees. That's the only real money grind in the whole prologue.

Rupees are scattered all over the forest if you poke around. Cut the grass, lift and throw the small rocks, and check inside the houses - one of them alone can be holding around ten. The village is tiny, so a lap or two chopping everything will usually get you to 40 without much pain.

Show Mido, then go see the tree

Once you have both items, walk up to the meadow entrance with the sword and shield equipped. Mido grumbles and steps aside. Talk to the Great Deku Tree, say yes to helping him, and he literally opens his mouth so you can walk inside. That's the dungeon.

Deku Tree Walkthrough Basics

Inside the Deku Tree is the game's tutorial wearing a dungeon costume. None of it is hard, but a few rewards hide behind steps the game never spells out, and it's easy to blow past them on the way to the boss. Here's the short route with the good stuff included.

The main path, in order

1. Entrance floor. Kill the Deku Baba near the ladder (lock on and keep your shield up so its bite bounces off, then cut it down), climb up, and follow the path around to the Dungeon Map chest.
2. The Fairy Slingshot. Back in the big central room, skip the vines for now and take the upper door. Bounce a Deku Nut back at the scrub with your shield to stun it, cross the collapsing platform, and open the chest. The slingshot is the real treasure of this dungeon - do not leave without it.
3. The shortcut down. In that same room, shoot the eye switch above the door you came through. A ladder drops. The grass down there hands out Deku Seeds for slingshot ammo.
4. Up the vines. Back in the central room, shoot the three Skulltulas clinging to the vines, then climb. Partway up you have to let go and shimmy sideways to reach the next ledge.
5. The switch room. Step on the floor switch, ride the raised platforms, and jump to the far chest for the Compass. The first Gold Skulltula is at ground level in this room - get close enough to lure it off the wall, wait for it to flip belly-up, then hit it twice.
6. Through the web. At the top of the central room, light a Deku Stick off a torch, use it to light the next torch, and head through the door. On the high ledge past it, run off and drop straight onto the big web over the pit. Done right, you crash through and splash down in the water below.
7. Basement chores. Down here you're lighting sticks and burning webs off doors, ducking under a spiked roller, and pushing a block onto a raised path. Shooting the eye switch above one door with the slingshot is what opens it.

The spiked roller room deserves a quick note. The intended fix is diving at the underwater switch to drop the water level, but crouching behind your shield and creeping under the roller works fine too.

The 2-3-1 door

Right before the boss you'll run into three Deku Scrubs. They spit nuts at you, so lock on and hold your shield up - the nut bounces back and stuns its owner. The trick is the order: middle first, then right, then left. The scrubs literally chant "2, 3, 1" at you earlier in the dungeon. Get it wrong and the fight just resets. The last scrub, annoyed at losing, spills the boss's weak point on his way out.

Queen Gohma

Walk in and look up. She's clinging to the ceiling, and Navi will pick her out. The whole fight is one loop: wait for her eye to flash red, ping it with a slingshot seed to stun her, then run in and slash the eye while she's down.

Two things make it go faster. Shooting her while she's still hanging from the ceiling buys you the longest opening. And don't leave her up there forever - stall too long and she hatches three Gohma Larvae, which is exactly how this fight turns into a slog. A jump slash with a Deku Stick hits hard if you'd rather finish a stun window in one swing.

Beat her and a Heart Container drops. Take the blue warp circle outside and the Deku Tree hands over the Kokiri's Emerald, the first Spiritual Stone. Fair warning: the tree still dies. The curse finished its work before you ever set foot inside. That's not you failing - that's just the story.

What you can't get on this trip

Four Gold Skulltulas live in this dungeon, and only three are reachable on a first visit. The fourth sits behind a Suspicious-Looking Wall that wants Bombs, and Bombs come from the next dungeon. There's no boss key and no Piece of Heart in here either, so don't tear the place apart hunting for one.

Child Link Essential Items

So what should a kid Link actually be carrying? Here's the loadout, roughly in order of importance.

Swords and shields

The Kokiri Sword is quick but light, and it's your only option as a child. Shields are where it gets interesting.

The Deku Shield is wooden, which means it burns. A fire-soaked Keese grazing you can torch it right out of your inventory. Replacing it only costs 40 rupees and the forest shop stocks them, but know that going in. Carrying a spare mentality saves a walk of shame home.

The Hylian Shield is the metal one, sold at the Bazaar in the Castle Town Market for 80 rupees. It never burns. It's oversized on a kid - you end up crouching behind it like a walking wall - but that's genuinely useful against projectiles. One money tip: show Zelda's Letter to the guard at the Death Mountain gate in Kakariko Village before you buy, and the Bazaar cuts the price. That letter is worth more than it looks.

The Fairy Slingshot

Your first ranged weapon, and it stays useful for the entire childhood stretch. Ammo is Deku Seeds, which drop from grass and pots all over the place, so you'll pretty much never run dry. Eye switches, Skulltulas on vines, and Gohma's eye all want seeds. If a target's out of sword reach as a kid, this is the answer nine times out of ten.

Songs worth picking up early

Saria stops you on the way out of the forest and gives you the Fairy Ocarina. Meet Princess Zelda and Impa teaches you Zelda's Lullaby.

Then there's the sleeper pickup: the Sun's Song. The big headstone at the back of Kakariko Village's graveyard opens when you play Zelda's Lullaby on the Triforce mark in front of it, and the Sun's Song is inside. It flips day to night and night to day, whenever you want. For a kid getting hounded by skeletons every night in Hyrule Field, that song is basically a cheat code. It's a quick grab once you're in the village.

Your first bottle is at the ranch

Bottles are quietly some of the best items in the game, and the first one is easy to miss. Walk into Lon Lon Ranch, dead center of Hyrule Field, and find Talon in his house during the day. His Super Cucco-findin' Game costs 10 rupees: three special cuccos get mixed into the flock, and you get 30 seconds to grab all three. Win it the first time and he hands over a bottle of Lon Lon Milk, which heals hearts and gets refilled every time you win again.

The milk is fine. The bottle is the point. Empty it out later and you've got something to catch fairies in, and a bottled fairy brings you back on the spot when you fall.

What keeps for later

Don't stress about the rest of the kid kit. Bombs show up around the second dungeon, and the childhood run eventually hands you more toys than you have buttons for. Sword, shield, slingshot, ocarina, bottle - that's the core of it.

Navigating Hyrule Field Early

Step out of the forest and suddenly the world is wide open. The first thing that happens is a giant owl, Kaepora Gaebora, landing to talk at you. Read his text boxes. The "did you get all that?" prompt defaults to hearing the whole speech again, and mashing buttons is how people sit through it three times.

Day is safe, night is skeletons

Hyrule Field runs on a day and night cycle, and as a kid the two feel like different games.

During the day the field is mostly empty. The one real hazard is the Peahats: big spiny plants hovering around the northern and southern stretches, away from the paths. They're active in daylight and they will chew you up if you get close. They don't chase you across the whole map though, so steer wide and they're a non-issue.

At night, Stalchildren crawl out of the ground. Endlessly. They pop up in pairs, go down in about two sword slashes each, and another rises as soon as one falls. Keep killing and the game starts sending bigger ones, so fighting is a losing game. You've got two outs: stay on the dirt road, where they don't spawn at all, or just wait it out - sunrise clears every last one of them.

Where everything sits

The field feels huge the first time you cross it and small by the fifth. The layout is simple:

• Hyrule Castle Town and the Market: north. This is where the story is pointed. The drawbridge shuts at night, so time your arrival for daylight.
• Kakariko Village: east, at the base of Death Mountain. The graveyard's in the back - that's your Sun's Song stop.
• Lon Lon Ranch: dead center. Bottle stop, plus free milk refills once you can win the cucco game reliably.
• The other exits lead off toward the river and the lake, and none of that is needed for a long while. Save it.

The run to the castle

Your first real errand is Hyrule Castle. Leave the forest (Saria's waiting with that ocarina), head north across the field, and cross the drawbridge into the Market while it's still day.

The castle itself needs a small ritual. Malon, the ranch girl, shows up near the path up to the castle at night and gives you an egg. That egg hatches into a cucco at dawn. Carry the cucco to her dad Talon, who's asleep down by the moat, and let him have it. Then push the crates into the water, crawl through the gap that opens up, and sneak past the guards in the courtyard without wandering into their sight lines. Zelda's waiting on the other side, and the actual story starts.

Common New Player Mistakes

Everyone trips on the same handful of things in the opening hours. Run down this list and you're ahead of the game.

• Talking to Mido with the gear sitting in your pockets. He wants to see the sword and shield on you. Have them equipped before you walk up.
• Climbing vines while a Skulltula faces you. It charges along the wall and knocks you off. Shoot it down with the slingshot or wait for it to turn away before climbing.
• Letting the Deku Shield touch fire. One flaming Keese and it's ash. Keep 40 rupees aside for a replacement, or upgrade to the Hylian Shield once you can afford it.
• Missing the Fairy Slingshot chest. It sits across a collapsing platform that looks optional. Without the slingshot, the eye switches and the boss are flat impossible, so grab it.
• Swinging at Gohma while she's standing. The shell shrugs off swords. Only the red-eye stun opens her up, so wait for it.
• Doing the scrubs out of order. Middle, right, left. Any other order and the door stays shut.
• Landing flat from big drops. Hold forward as you land and Link rolls out of it with no damage. A scrub in the dungeon literally tells you this, and almost nobody's listening by then.
• Fighting Stalchildren all night. They don't stop coming. Walk the dirt road, wait for sunrise, or come back with the Sun's Song.
• Skipping the ranch. It's sitting right in the middle of your commute. Ten rupees, thirty seconds, and you walk away with the best early pickup in the game - the bottle.
• Paying full price for the Hylian Shield. Show Zelda's Letter to the guard at the Death Mountain gate before you visit the Bazaar. One short conversation knocks a solid chunk off that 80-rupee tag, and that's rupees you get to keep for the road.