Hovering is one of the most useful tricks in the game. The trick lets you backflip while already in the air to keep gaining height or distance and reach normally unreachable places through use of the shield, a damage source, and ISG.
Hovering uses the feature of ISG which prevents you from falling off edges when on the ground. When you shield a damage source in the air, the game temporarily places Link in the grounded state before he starts falling. Since ISG doesn't allow Link to start falling when on the ground, Link remains stuck in the air. From this position, link may do another backflip to hover higher.
If hovering close to the ground, the game will place link down on the ground after a few seconds. For this reason, hovering must either be performed off a ledge, or two hovers must be done off ground level in quick succession before the game has time to place link down so that link will stay in the air.
The first step for hovering is to activate ISG. After ISG has been activated, there are various methods to perform the trick:
The distance Link travels and the height he gets from a bomb hover depend on the backflip timing:
As mentioned above, hovering from the ground can be done, however is difficult as it requires two hovers in quick succession.
Hovering from the ground is easier if the second hover is done with a Bombchu or Blast Mask. However, it is doable with 2 bombs using the "staircase" method.
The camera is normally locked in a Z/L-target position during a hover, but it is possible to unlock the camera which allows the direction of hovering to be changed in the middle of the hover.
To unlock the camera, you need to find something to Z/L-target. This could be an enemy or NPC, but it's most common to use bombchus since they can be targeted while hovering off of them. To unlock the camera with a bombchu, do a normal bombchu hover and tap Z/L on the frame before the explosion or the first frame of the explosion. This frame window varies in relation to the R press timing depending on whether the R press is immediate or not, since Link can only begin shielding a minimum of 2 frames after the bombchu input. For clarity:
Frame | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7+ |
Input | A to backflip | C for bombchu & R to shield | - | - | Z/L to untarget | Z/L to untarget | can no longer untarget with bombchu |
Frame | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7+ |
Input | A to backflip | C for bombchu | R to shield | - | Z/L to untarget | Z/L to untarget | can no longer untarget with bombchu |
Frame | 1 | 2 | 3 | n | n+1 | n+2 | n+3 |
Input | A to backflip | C for bombchu | - | R to shield | Z/L to untarget | Z/L to untarget | can no longer untarget with bombchu |
Once you unlock your camera, you should notice the black 'bars' at the top and bottom of the screen disappear.
Once you unlock the camera, you still won't be able to turn link around straight away. First you must hold up and slightly left or right on the analog stick. You should see link slowly walking towards the direction that you hold. If he is strafing sideways or not moving then you're holding too far left/right. Once you get into this position, let go of the analog stick for a very short amount of time and then tap the direction that you want to face, and link should turn to face that direction.