Navigation
Milk Road
─── Milk Road ───
Hover past keg boulder
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.
Milk Road Night 2 for 100%
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.
Cremia wagon escort
Shoot each Gorman brother after he yells at least twice, then aim down for lag reduction for the remainder of the escort (saves under half a second). Shooting each Gorman brother only once usually works, as shown in the video below, but it does not always work.
─── Romani Ranch ───
Epona archery minigame
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.
Fence method
This method is the same idea in reverse.
Epona cutscene skip
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.
- Target the inner face of the left post (hex angle F050)
- Pull a bomb
- Target walk nearer the gossip stone before the bomb explodes
- Release target before the bomb explodes to let the bomb change Link's facing angle (to either hex angle 593 or 59D)
- Pull another bomb
- Line up Link's position by walking into the gossip stone
- Superslide and hold left to clip out of bounds (Z/L and R can be released when Link is no longer on the ground)
- When the second tree hits the left side of the screen, switch to holding up-left
Aliens
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.
Demonstrations of aliens sequences
Barnshot
Day reset after aliens
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.
Death method
This is the faster method if you are at 1 heart and have at least 2 bombs.
- Get timestop near the gossip stone to play ocarina while moving (see video below for position setup for bomb timestop)
- Play SoDT
- Cancel timestop with c-up and A
- Pull a bomb and die (shooting the bomb with an arrow kills Link more quickly but is not required)
- Press A on the SoDT prompt
Original video by Imbued
Goron ladder void method
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.
- Get timestop near the gossip stone to play ocarina while moving (see video above for position setup for bomb timestop)
- Cancel timestop with c-up and A (you can still play ocarina as long as you don't press B)
- Transform Goron and roll to the ladder
- Get on the ladder, then climb down once, then climb up once to clip
- While Link is climbing, play SoDT, timing the last input to coincide with the visual cue of Link's arm reaching the ground (see video below)
- Mash A to confirm the SoDT prompt as soon as it appears
Cremia cutscene skip
Part 1
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 can also be done with a previously stored Song of Double Time.) 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.
Part 2
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.
Dog race
Information gathered by Deathbasket
Talking to the lady by running into her while carrying a dog will softlock if you shield drop the dog just as Link reaches the lady. Don't do that.
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. This document consolidates all the information known about dog race, the relevant points of which are covered below.
Color
Independent of text, the colors ranked from fastest to slowest are:
- Gold
- White or brown
- Beige
- Grey
- Blue
Text
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; they are also re-rolled after a race is completed. The text can be identified by the first word in the text box in English or Japanese:
| English | Japanese |
| Good (see next section) | Ruff! | ワン！ |
| Neutral | Rrr-Ruff! | ウ～、ワン！ |
| Bad | Hoo-whine. | ク～ン |
Ambiguous good text
One of the good text options ("Ruff! ...Today, I should do pretty well."/"ワン！ …オレ、今日けっこういけそうだなぁ") is given by two dogs instead of only one like most of the other text options are, and one of the two dogs with this particular good text box will behave in the race as though it had neutral text. Data collected by Ennopp show that while gold dog with any other good text box wins nearly all races, it wins only around half of the races with this text box, indicating that gold dog with neutral text is not a good bet against a brown or white dog with good text. This complicates things: Picking up a dog with this text box, there is no way to know whether it is actually good or neutral, and if gold dog has this text box, then there is roughly only a 50% chance of winning whether you pick gold dog or a brown or white dog with good text. If gold dog has this text box, reloading the area to re-roll the text is recommended.
The text box in Japanese is shown below. A runner who can't read Japanese can recognize it by the opening ellipsis and first character; the only other good text that begins with an ellipsis has a different first character and also ends with an exclamation point. The other Japanese good text options can be read here.
Likewise, there is one neutral text option that is given by two dogs, one of which will behave in the race as though it had bad text, but that isn't relevant to speedruns.
Winning the race
A typical scheme for winning the race is as follows:
- Pick up gold dog
- If gold dog has the ambiguous good text mentioned above, reload the area
- If gold dog has other good text, choose gold dog
- If gold dog has neutral or bad text, pick up brown and white dogs
- If any brown or white dog has good text that is not the ambiguous good text mentioned above, choose that dog
- Otherwise, reload the area and begin again from step 1
