On JP, hover twice against the wall without unlocking the camera, then transform Zora and hold anywhere from down-left to up-left to pop up onto the wall. From there, navigate carefully to jump around the boulder. Because English mask transitions are different, there is an alternative English strat.
This is a demonstration of hitting the owl statue, hovering over the fence, buying Tingle's maps, and storing SoDT by playing ocarina while moving.
Shoot each Gorman brother once after he yells, then aim down for lag reduction for the remainder of the escort (saves under half a second).
The main two approaches taken are to ride around the ranch shooting balloons or to shoot half of the balloons from a notch in the fence before riding towards the remaining ones.
This method is the same idea in reverse.
It's possible to skip the cutscene introducing Epona by hitting its trigger and then voiding out. The video below demonstrates that the cutscene trigger is present on the save state, then demonstrates that it is no longer present after the void.
This skips the part of the wagon escort intro sequence that takes place on Romani Ranch itself. When Cremia is ready to begin (between 6pm and 7pm Night 2), get timestop in front of the gossip stone to play ocarina while moving. Play Song of Double Time, then talk to Cremia before the song prompt comes up. Say yes to Cremia to begin the wagon escort, then say yes on the song prompt that comes up as the screen is fading. This incurs a day reset and skips the cutscene. Now, if Link is in Milk Road at any point during Night 2, the part of the cutscene that plays on Milk Road will begin. However, if Link is on Romani Ranch at any point during Night 2, the first part of the cutscene will play.
This skips the part of the wagon escort intro sequence that takes place on Milk Road. During Day 2, after having done the first part of the cutscene skip, enter Milk Road from the Gorman Racetrack. Turn 180 degrees, then do two full rolls. Play Song of Double Time and hold down after the banner text. This makes Link enter the load zone for the Gorman Racetrack on the same frame the Milk Road cutscene begins, skipping the cutscene and advancing to the Gorman Racetrack cutscene.
In fact, after Part 1 of the skip, the only requirement for Part 2 of the skip is entering the Gorman Racetrack map on Night 2 or transitioning to Night 2 while on the map. The method above is useful if there's still a lot of Day 2 left, as Song of Double Time can't be used in the Gorman Racetrack. However, Sun's Song can be used on that map, so runs with Sun's Song can simply play it on Gorman Racetrack during Day 2 to advance to Night 2 and start the Gorman Racetrack wagon cutscene.
The aliens begin invading the ranch at 2:30am on Night 1, and if they are not stopped, they'll reach the barn at 3:49am, making it impossible to get the milk bottle or Romani's Mask without starting a new cycle.
Speedruns usually try to reach the ranch shortly before the aliens reach the barn so as not to spend extra time waiting. The video below demonstrates that it's possible to beat the aliens after entering the ranch a few minutes before 3:30am using a trick called "barnshot" (see video below), which is an arrow shot through a part of the barn that has no collision. Being on the ranch already when time reaches 2:30am plays a cutscene of the aliens arriving, so arriving at the ranch after 2:30am is recommended. The aliens take over 1h15m IGT to reach the barn after they're shot, so shooting all 8 aliens at or after 4am makes it impossible for them to reach the barn, leaving time for getting supplies from bushes, damaging down, and/or getting rupees from the entry archway.
There are multiple ways to perform a day reset with stored Song of Double Time after getting the milk bottle in order to get Epona's Song after aliens.
This is the faster method if you are at 1 heart and have at least 2 bombs.
Original video by Imbued
This method is slightly slower but does not require low health or bombs. The video below contains the method written out below and a second alternative method.
There is no consistent way to win the dog race, but you can choose a likely winner based on its color and its text when Link picks it up with the Mask of Truth on. Here is the detailed writeup that is summarized below.
Independent of text, the colors ranked from fastest to slowest are:
When picked up while Link is wearing the Mask of Truth, each dog will give good, neutral, or bad text. Each dog's text is set when the area loads and can be re-rolled by reloading the area. The text can be identified by the first word in the text box in English or Japanese:
English | Japanese | |
Good | Ruff! | ワン! |
Neutral | Rrr-Ruff! | ウ~、ワン! |
Bad | Hoo-whine. | ク~ン |
A typical scheme for winning the race is as follows:
Since white and brown dogs with good text have less of a chance of winning than gold dog with good text, some runners opt to reload the area until gold dog has good text rather than picking up white and brown dogs to look for good text. However, even gold dog with good text is not guaranteed to win the race.