Palace of Twilight

For boss and miniboss strategies, see the pages for Phantom Zant and Zant.

West room 1 wolf double hit

This Zant head slowly rises and falls, and a Midna charge released underneath it while it is near its highest point can hit twice. To do this consistently:

  1. Dash towards the Zant head
  2. Begin charging the Midna attack around when Link enters the large circular texture on the ground
  3. Release the attack when Link is nearly all the way underneath the Zant head, shortly before it fires its attack

Comparison to slower strategy

West room 2 strategy

  • The Zant head spawns in one of four locations: front center, back center, left, or right.
  • Regardless of where it spawns, hit with a targeted B attack while dashing (will double hit if done correctly), then finish with a Midna charge attack; this Zant head does not rise and fall, so a Midna charge double hit is impossible.
  • To start charging the Midna attack as soon as possible, begin holding B between the second hit on the Zant head and reaching the ground.
  • If you move Link so that the Midna charge makes him attack towards where the chest will spawn, it is easier to reach the chest before it spawns and open it right after the cutscene; to this end, it can be helpful not to start holding B early for the Midna charge attack for left or right Zant head spawns so that you can more easily move Link to a good spot.
  • The front center spawn is the fastest when handled well, and it is possible but difficult to reach the chest before the cutscene even from that spawn.
  • It can be helpful to B attack shortly before the cutscene begins to make Link jump forward and slide during the cutscene. If Link is near the chest but not quite there, hold down-left/left out of the cutscene, then release to neutral before pressing A to avoid dashing and bonking.

West room 2 jump attack from chest

Instead of clawshotting the medallion, use a jump attack from on top of the chest to reach the ledge. In a 100% run, be careful not to sidehop too quickly and get a backslice sideroll.

West sol

Text skip discovered by LogitechSDAZ

The camera angle when the bars over the door go down persists when you regain control of Link. When clawshotting the hand to make it drop the sol, aim the clawshot so that firing it again right afterwards will pick up the sol, as Midna will pop up with text if the sol is on the ground for long enough. L-slide towards the socket while picking up the sol. The hand cutscene activates once the sol gets close to the socket, so throwing the sol towards the socket saves time by partially overlapping the hand cutscene with the cutscene of the stairs rising. If the cutscenes are successfully overlapped, the stairs cutscene will make the controller vibrate during the hand cutscene.

West room 2 return

After throwing the sol towards the socket, stand in the corner on the unrisen stairs so that they carry Link up when they rise during the cutscene. In 100%, draw the sword before rolling after throwing the sol to avoid accidental Mortal Draw. When clawshotting the sol from the corner shown, begin an L-slide to the right when the clawshot has nearly reached the sol; starting too early will make the sol clank. If done correctly, the L-slide will move Link past the spawn trigger for four squeebles without activating it.

Setup

This costs about 1s vs. running straight to the socket and throwing the sol, but it makes it easier to avoid missing the socket. Run and jump towards the corner of the walls on the right as shown in the video. Midair, begin holding up-left. Throw the sol once Link is near the edge of the unrisen stairs.

LJA to east wing (GCN only)

See left side of video. Sword drop the sol and then roll, then just walk forward and roll a 2nd time once you pass onto the outer circle shown in video. You will land on the platform which will raise slightly before the Midna text. Being here allows you to instantly throw the boomerang LJA over as soon as possible.

East room 1

aka "stupid room"

without hidden skills

Begin by rolling and running to the ledge and quickly clawshotting to the medallion on the ceiling. Time dropping down onto the platform based on how long aiming the clawshot took; some runners prefer to wait until the platform has moved in front of Link, then drop and jumpslash. (See video with hidden skills below for a demo of clawshotting.) Wait until the platform has started moving back towards the entrance to jump to the next platform so that the light platform cycle lines up for it to be possible to reach the far Zant head spawns before the Zant head despawns. While waiting, it can be helpful to spin attack the keese.

The Zant head spawns in one of five locations. What to do in each case is shown in the video below. The fastest case is the spawn near the third light platform, but it can be difficult to go quickly enough to reach the Zant head while avoiding jumping down to the floor.

with hidden skills

Shield bash makes it possible to get to the Zant head in one cycle regardless of its spawn position without delaying jumping off of the first light platform. Begin by getting to the first light platform as described above. When the four farther light platforms' edges align, jump to the next platform. The video below shows what to do from here for each RNG case. The fastest case is still the spawn near the third light platform. The hardest case is the spawn at the first light platform because it is optimal to jump to two more platforms before the chest spawns, as shown in the video below; this requires a well angled corner-to-corner jump, so if you are unsure of making this jump, waiting to do it after the chest spawns is much safer.

East room 2

  1. Roll and jump off the starting platform, and pull boomerang midair.
  2. Autoroll and throw the boomerang, ideally hitting both of the near shadow beasts. This stuns them so that they don't enter their long attack animation. Try to be right of center in the room as there is a keese on the left side of the room that can be bothersome if it notices Link.
  3. Autotransform in the fog, charge a Midna attack, and kill all three shadow beasts. While charging the Midna attack, walk towards the center of the room to make the attack less likely to bonk on the barrier on either side.
  4. Once the far barrier disappears, hit the Zant head with a targeted B attack while dashing (will double hit if done correctly), then finish with a Midna charge attack. To start charging the Midna attack as soon as possible, begin holding B between the second hit on the Zant head and reaching the ground. Be centered behind the Zant head when releasing the Midna charge so that it moves Link directly towards the center of the room. The camera will automatically flip to face the direction Link is facing after the Midna charge, so don't touch the control stick or C-stick until then.
  5. Dash towards the center of the room and begin charging a Midna attack around when Link reaches the perimeter of the dark central circle. Release after tagging all three Zant heads. If done correctly, the attack will double hit both of the far Zant heads and hit the near one once.
  6. Finish off the near Zant head with a targeted B attack while dashing (double hit again). Delay dashing until right before inputting the B attack to get a dash cancel.
  7. Dash towards the left clawshot medallion and transform once out of the fog.
  8. Quickly clawshot to the upper right portion of the medallion so that it's possible to clawshot all the way to the second ceiling medallion after the chest cutscene. The clawshot must start moving Link before the cutscene begins in order to count.
  9. After the cutscene, begin aiming the clawshot (tap L). Holding down-left will move the reticle straight to the ceiling medallion.
  10. After reaching the ceiling medallion, either go for "spidey shot" (shown in video) by timing releasing the clawshot in third person, or go into first person to aim at the wall medallion.
  11. After the small key, stand right on the edge of the platform and clawshot to the wall medallion. This is faster than the LJA alternative described below.

LJA after small key

After grabbing the small key it is arguably easier to LJA to the door instead of using the clawshot to get over. Stand on the small rectangular texture on the ground and target the slope of the wall next to the door. Jump as soon as the boomerang goes into the wall.

East sol

Like the other Phantom Zant room, the camera angle when the bars over the door go down persists when you regain control of Link. The hand cutscene behaves differently, though, beginning once the sol is a little bit away from the hand. If the sol is still being pulled by the clawshot when the cutscene activates, the sol will drop in place and need to be picked up again after the cutscene, so it is best to clawshot the hand and sol from nearby and then run into the cutscene while holding the sol.

After the cutscene, sword drop the sol near the socket, then time a roll to begin shortly before the stairs cutscene begins. Ideally, press B immediately after A to get a rollstab during the cutscene. Clawshot the sol from the top of the stairs, L-sliding to move slightly towards the door while clawshotting.

East room 2 return

Run straight and throw the sol at the socket once Link is on top of the unrisen stairs. This will cause the cutscenes of the stairs raising and the hand to start together. After the cutscenes end, roll to the solid platform and clawshot the sol. An L-slide towards the exit while clawshotting the sol can save a small amount of time.

East room 1 return

It is possible to get to the second light platform before waiting for the platforms to come closer together again. This is somewhat difficult and risky, and it only saves a small amount of time over waiting on the first platform. The platforms continue moving during the hand cutscene, meaning that it is only possible to make this optimal cycle after skipping the cutscene nearly as early as possible.

Light Sword optimizations

There is one frame to throw the sol before the twili cutscene, and it is optimal to do so, roll to the platform after the cutscene, and then clawshot the sol. If you miss the frame, it's still fastest to roll to the platform by sword dropping the sol and immediately rolling. From the near corner of the platform, it is possible to clawshot the sol even after the platform has risen, so an easy strategy is to aim the clawshot below the sol and wait for the platform to rise enough that the clawshot is aiming at the sol, then shoot.

To get the sol into the socket as fast as possible, throw from a little bit outside the light grey circle (optimal range shown in this video).

Between the Light Sword text and the Midna text afterwards, there is one frame for input. While rolling north (up-right) on this frame only saves 1f in movement because the Midna text stops Link from moving, doing so also makes Link face the same direction as the camera, which makes Midna pop up 5f faster than she would with Link facing the direction the cutscene points him, so it's worth going for this 1-framer.

Double sol room Staircase Skip

Discovered by ZachLink99 & bewildebeest

By doing a series of targets, and using the auto transform with the fog, you can perform a midna super jump off of a keese to skip the staircase, this trick is fairly lenient, however targetting the moving keese is very annoying. Place a dummy target, then target the keese, then target the ground at the staircase, then target anywhere a bit above the ledge. Go into the fog then release the boomerang giving you the instant transform effect, then position just left of the sol on the left side while still on the stairs, hold a midna charge to get the keese in it, walk forward up to the sol, then release it, you should be up on the ledge. The lower you targetted for the last target the faster the boomerang comes back to you, however if you target too low, the keese will get stuck. This trick saves 2-3s if done well, and would save up to 6s in the HD version.

Double sol room first LJA

After placing both sols and going up with the platform, LJA to get over the gap faster. Targets are not precise, but as the exact positioning of the targets determines whether the boomerang will go out of bounds or stay in bounds and falling down costs some time, it can be a good idea to item wheel buffer the LJA to make sure it goes out of bounds before pressing A.

Double sol room Early Platform Spawn

Discovered by Kejsmaster, improved by Giradam

Between killing the Zant heads and waiting for the chest to appear, there is some unused time that can be used to spawn the light platform. After killing the first 4 Zant heads, quickspin the 3 sol orbs, then kill the remaining two Zant heads. There is plenty of time to get to the chest spawn location before the cutscene. Now, after getting the key, the platform will already be ready to rise. This saves roughly 2 seconds over lighting the sol orbs after collecting the key.

Double sol room final LJA

After getting the small key, LJA to get over the gap faster. This LJA is very risky because the exact positioning of the targets determines whether the boomerang will go out of bounds or stay in bounds and falling down costs about 27s, so it can be a good idea to item wheel buffer the LJA to make sure it goes out of bounds before pressing A.

TreZc0 found alternative targets for this LJA that seem more consistent. With these you can easily tell if the boomerang went out of bounds because otherwise it will move around the pillar in front of the door. Target the right wall and the inner door frame on the left side.

Boss key area

Void warp and boss key shortcut by LogitechSDAZ

Getting through this area quickly centers around managing the Zant head spawn cycle. The video below demonstrates several strategies that work together to make the area fast.

  1. Getting to the lone Zant head. It isn't possible to get to the Zant head until its second spawn, so it's beneficial to get it to spawn as early as possible initially to start the cycle. It spawns when Link hits a trigger that the platform is moving towards, so standing on (or hanging off of) that side of the platform until the Zant head spawns saves a few frames over standing towards the other side. After spin attacking the kargaroks, wait until the platform stops and target about as far along the wall as possible, then throw the boomerang once the platform starts moving again. LJA after the boomerang spins and enters the wall; unlike the risky LJAs in the previous room, this LJA is consistent and doesn't require buffering because the boomerang will always enter the wall.

  2. Getting back to the central area. The fastest way back from the lone Zant head is this LJA, but this LJA is precise enough that it is seldom seen RTA. The next fastest is to void out, which only gets Link back to the central area slightly faster than riding the light platform but makes the next set of Zant heads' spawn cycle work out nicely for killing them after obtaining the boss key. The Zant head will only count as dead if it explodes before Link begins voiding, so delay jumping off the platform if needed.

  3. Boss key shortcut. Disperse the twilight fog, ideally with a quickly charged spin attack rather than a quickspin so that the fog stays dispersed for longer. From roughly the position shown in the video, it is then possible to clawshot to the clawshot medallion shown, skipping the lower medallion on the opposite side. To make it down to the next three Zant heads before they despawn, it is necessary to claw up to the boss key somewhat quickly, though not necessarily as quickly as shown in the video below. After getting the boss key, it can be helpful to enter and exit first person briefly to center the camera behind Link before jumping down. Make sure to run a little before rolling, as rolling straight from the chest will make Link transform and fall into the void. If you're not comfortable clawshotting up to the boss key while the Zant heads are nearby, an easier but slower strategy is to get the boss key at the beginning of the room before going to the lone Zant head.

LJA back to main platform

This is slightly faster than voiding but is precise. Target in the area shown in the video, then wait for the boomerang to go out of bounds.

Outdoor Jump Strike LJA

Discovered By SVA161620

It is possible to do a Jump Strike LJA over to the first Zant head outside and activate the return platform with the smash from the Jump Strike. Target at the floor between the light orbs, then the wall, then the other side of the wall, then finally angle Link back towards the orbs. When the boomerang goes OoB, you can Jump Strike LJA towards the orbs and hopefully activate them without making the platform start returning. Refer to the second part of the video.

Early Platform

How long this room takes depends both on making the earliest possible cycle on the platform at the top of the room and getting the second Zant head to spawn as early as possible. Making the earliest platform cycle can be done without any LJAs, as shown in the video below. However, because the second Zant head's spawn cycle begins when the first Zant head dies, adding LJAs can speed up the room by getting Link to the first Zant head earlier.

To make the platform cycle without LJAs, as shown in the video below:

  1. Roll forwards to spawn the fence
  2. Charge a spin attack, wait to hear the sound the shadow beasts make right before they fall, and then release the spin attack
  3. Once the fence disappears, roll and autospin the sol orbs
  4. Roll jump off of the platform once the thin black line on the baba platform is visible at the top of the screen while in first person
  5. Jump and jumpslash to the next light platform
  6. Stand at the back right corner of the light platform and clawshot to the medallion
  7. On the next light platform, ledge grab by target walking or neutral rolling, then climb so Link is in the very corner (the Zant head attack will not hit as long as you don't move)
  8. Shoot the clawshot at the very bottom of the clawshot medallion a moment after the Zant head disappears; to reliably aim at the lowest point of the medallion, aim all the way up and c-up cancel 7 times
  9. Drop from the medallion and autospin to kill the Zant head
  10. Clawshot up to the ceiling. It is possible to be too early to drop down right away, so pay attention to the platform's position. If the platform is slightly too far forward to drop onto, drop and jumpslash to reach it.

Early platform LJAs

As described above, LJAs before the first Zant head can save time. The video below shows the entire room with four LJAs added. The benefit of these LJAs is apparent at the end of the room, when the second Zant head spawns right as Link reaches the final clawshot medallion without any waiting.

  1. The first LJA is somewhat risky because the fog can transform Link if you start the LJA from too far forwards, and sometimes the boomerang won't go out of bounds. After killing the shadow beasts, take a step back from the fence (if you're already away from the fence, you still need to wait a moment or else you'll LJA before the fence disappears), target twice on the wall, LJA, and autospin.

  2. The second LJA is somewhat risky because the boomerang sometimes stays in bounds, so it's a good idea to buffer this LJA for safety. However, as pulling the item wheel pauses the platforms, doing so makes the LJA save less time.

  3. The third LJA is the most worthwhile because it does not rely on the boomerang going out of bounds and also skips the baba, which with bad RNG can knock Link over after clawshotting behind it. Stand in the corner of the platform shown and target the boomerang on the ceiling above the stationary light platform. Once the corner of the dark line on the baba platform reaches the bottom of the screen, throw the boomerang, then LJA after the boomerang begins circling as it reaches the target. This LJA makes use of the height difference between the rising platform Link is standing on and the stationary platform, so the timing is important.

  4. The fourth LJA is somewhat risky because the boomerang sometimes stays in bounds. It is also possible to get pushed off of the platform by the Zant head when it spawns if you don't move away from the edge quickly.

Early platform with shield attack

Reflecting the final Zant head's attack with shield attack to stun it means not waiting on that head to despawn and respawn, saving a couple seconds. This makes LJAing to reach the first Zant head sooner less important: As long as you make the early platform cycle, you can kill the second Zant head immediately after clawshotting over.

Early platform with Midna call

There is a short waiting period between the fence spawning and the shadow beasts falling. Calling Midna during this time pauses the platforms in the room but doesn't stop the timer for the shadow beast to fall, which makes it much easier to get to the platform at the top of the room without waiting later on. However, since this means the platform ultimately takes longer to get close enough to the final clawshot medallion for Link to clawshot over, this does cost time, so it is only recommended for newer runners who aren't confident in making the early platform cycle without a Midna call.

Early head

Without shield attack, it's still possible to reach the second Zant head before it despawns by delaying killing the first Zant head as long as possible, quickly clawshotting up to the ceiling and over to the wall, and stabbing the second Zant head. This is faster than the standard strategy because it eliminates the wait time at the end, but it risks missing the platform cycle, and it is difficult to get to the final Zant head before it despawns if it is in the leftmost or rightmost spawn position.

LJA after Early Platform

After getting the small key, jump on the platform and immediately target the left door frame or the wall right next to it. Jump as soon as the boomerang is past the top of the staircase.

Last updated 05/06/2025 – bewildebeest