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.

─── 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.

  1. Target the inner face of the left post (hex angle F050)
  2. Pull a bomb
  3. Target walk nearer the gossip stone before the bomb explodes
  4. Release target before the bomb explodes to let the bomb change Link's facing angle (to either hex angle 593 or 59D)
  5. Pull another bomb
  6. Line up Link's position by walking into the gossip stone
  7. Superslide and hold left to clip out of bounds (Z/L and R can be released when Link is no longer on the ground)
  8. When the second tree hits the left side of the screen, switch to holding up-left

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 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.

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.

  1. Get timestop near the gossip stone to play ocarina while moving (see video below for position setup for bomb timestop)
  2. Play SoDT
  3. Cancel timestop with c-up and A
  4. Pull a bomb and die (shooting the bomb with an arrow kills Link more quickly but is not required)
  5. 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.

  1. Get timestop near the gossip stone to play ocarina while moving (see video above for position setup for bomb timestop)
  2. Cancel timestop with c-up and A (you can still play ocarina as long as you don't press B)
  3. Transform Goron and roll to the ladder
  4. Get on the ladder, then climb down once, then climb up once to clip
  5. 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)
  6. Mash A to confirm the SoDT prompt as soon as it appears

Dog race

Information gathered by Deathbasket

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.

Color

Independent of text, the colors ranked from fastest to slowest are:

  1. Gold
  2. White
  3. Brown
  4. Beige
  5. Grey
  6. 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. The text can be identified by the first word in the text box in English or Japanese:

EnglishJapanese
GoodRuff!ワン！
NeutralRrr-Ruff!ウ～、ワン！
BadHoo-whine.ク～ン

Winning the race

A typical scheme for winning the race is as follows:

  1. Pick up gold dog
  2. If gold dog has good text, choose gold dog
  3. If gold dog has neutral or bad text, pick up white dogs
  4. If any white dog has good text, choose that dog
  5. If no white dogs have good text, pick up brown dogs
  6. If any brown dog has good text, choose that dog
  7. If no brown dogs have good text, reload the area

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.

Last updated 04/07/2024 – bewildebeest