Zelda: Ocarina Of Time Has a Game-Changing Secret We All Missed

The Legend Of Zelda: Ocarina Of Time is widely regarded as one of the best games ever made, yet despite its massive following I’d bet over half of players didn’t know you could do this.

Ocarina Of Time isn’t what I’d call a difficult game but some of its enemies can be pretty tough whereas others can be downright annoying.

The ReDeads are a good example of this, and you encounter your first one fairly early into the game before they become a pretty common enemy later.

Get too close to one and they’ll let out a bone-chilling scream which freezes Link in place. As if that wasn’t terrifying enough, if they can meander over to you in time they’ll wrap themselves around you, dealing consistent damage and generally being a pain in the neck.

It’s best to avoid them if you can, which is where this unexpected trick comes into play… the Iron Boots.

Nintendo

Now I’ve played Ocarina Of Time plenty of times over the years on just about every Nintendo platform it’s been available on, but Nostalgicloft’s recent video on the game blew my mind.

For whatever reason when you’re wearing the Iron Boots the ReDeads can’t see you, nor can they hear the loud clanking of iron hitting a stone floor apparently.

The caveat to this strategy is of course wearing the Iron Boots, which slows Link down significantly and prevents him from doing any platforming, but there’s rarely a room with ReDeads and precarious jumps so latter weakness isn’t anything to worry about.

I can think of a handful of areas where this strategy would be useful, especially when you’re doing some backtracking for items and don’t fancy wrestling with these frustrating enemies.

One other downside is you only get the Iron Boots as Adult Link, so the Young Link portions of the game will leave you defenceless against ReDeads, we wouldn’t want to make things too easy now would we?

Either way it’s a cool little detail and one a lot of Zelda fans weren’t aware of, sparking the desire for even more playthroughs to see what other secrets Ocarina Of Time has been keeping from us.

While The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom are impressive technical marvels, it just goes to show that the old dog still has a few tricks left in it. Ocarina Of Time truly is the best of the best.