The guides

Description

These are no-​nonsense to-​the-​point guides for getting everything as soon as possible in Zelda games. They are meant to help you get all the items/​skills/​etc. in the games as early as possible, but within reason – they won’t drag you out of a dungeon to hunt Pieces of Heart and Poe Souls as soon as you get the dungeon item. The descriptions are short, concise, and clear enough that you’ll actually spend your time playing, not reading.

The guides won’t tell you how to play the game or solve complex puzzles. They are not written with first-​time players in mind – the descriptions may be a bit short for that.

If these guides are of any interest to you, then you’re probably a bit like me: You like maxing out all your skills and equipment as you go, and you enjoy smashing your opponents to bits with the best gear possible at any point in the game.

If you’re not like me and instead think that these kinds of guides ruin the whole experience, even for veteran players, well, whatever floats your boat – I’m not forcing this on anyone. :)

For more on why I actually made these in the first place, read the post On my Zelda optimal equipment guides.

Share and enjoy

I have entered all the actual information into XML files. I wrote a Java program to create the HTML guides from the XML files. You can find everything in this GitHub repository. Feel free to tweak and build similar guides in all manner of forms, from interactive apps to printable LaTeX documents (as long as you adhere to the licenses).

Creative Commons Licence

The Legend of Zelda optimal equipment guides by Christer van der Meeren are licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-​ShareAlike 4.0 International.

Cover image by Sweetie187 on Flickr.

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  1. Just wish this site covered more Zelda games, like maybe the 2D ones. These guides are excelent!

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    1. Thanks! I never liked the 2D ones, which is why there aren’t guides for them, but I’m happy you like the ones that are here! 🙂

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  2. What an amazing idea. I’ve always hated that Zelda games always made it a real pain to collect everything. So many of my games end with me sitting before the end with missing a handful of heart containers and then I have to find a guide of all their location and go through them one by one to find the ones I’m missing. That’s why I wondered if there would be a checklist out there that makes it a lot easier to know what it missed. Your site covered that and then some. It’s great because as somebody who played through it the first time it lets me make sure I don’t miss anything but it vague enough and doesn’t touch on solving any of the puzzles. A normal walk through would have walked me through everything and that just ruins the fun.

    Really love it. I just played through TP for the first time and I’m glad this was around.

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  3. My favorite side quest is to return Kukiel back to her home, this side quest is available after clearing the Skyview (Forest) Temple, and place the ruby tablet in the puzzle piece in the altar. I would do as early as possible to get the first 5 Crystal Gratitude, then get the 10 Crystal Gratitudes during the night for a total of 15. Go visit Batreaux and give him the first 5 Crystal Gratitudes for the Piece of Heart, and give 10 more Crystal Gratitudes for a Medium Wallet to increase 500 more rupees. This can be done before entering the Eldin Volcano, but there are 10 more Crystal Gratitudes to collect by doing Parrow and Orielle side quest by talking to Parrow about where is Orielle and her brown Loftwing is on the island to the west of Skyloft. It is easy to place the beacon at the island where Orielle is at, then return to Skyloft and talk to Parrow and he gives you the (third) bottle of medicine, then fly to that island where Orielle is at. Give the medicine to Orielle and she pour it to her injured brown Loftwing and she will give you 5 Crystal Gratitudes for helping her, and then fly back to Skyloft and talk to Parrow for helping Orielle out for another 5 more Crystal Gratitudes for a total of 25 Crystal Gratitudes before entering the Eldin Volcano.

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  4. These are great! In OOT you cant actually get the golden scale and heart piece 21 until after the water temple.

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    1. Thanks! Yes, you can. :) Are you thinking that you can’t get into the Fishing Pond before completing the Water Temple? Just go near the Fishing Pond “cliff” and play the Scarecrow’s Song when Navi flies up and turns green, then use the Hookshot to get up.

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  5. In Ocarina of Time you can actually get Piece of Heart #11 already at your first visit before finishing Dodongo Cavern. If you climb on the unfinished house with a cuccoo you can fly to the entrance at the side of the house.

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    1. Thanks! Do you have a video of that? I just want to see how easy it is, and if it’s a “proper” way to get it (in which case I’ll move it in the guide) or whether it’s “gaming the system” (in which case I might make a note of it when you first arrive in Kakariko Village, but keep its current location in the guide.)

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