Ganon's Tower

Trials Skip

The second room in Ganon's Tower consists of four doors each leading to a different trial, at the end of which you need to refight the boss of that area. You are supposed to refight all four bosses to break down the stone wall blocking the loading zone to the next area. It is however possible to skip these trials and go right to the loading zone by clipping out of bounds. There are three different ways to do it. The original method uses a Ledge Clip. It was more recently discovered that it is possible to use a Roll Clip to do the exact same thing.

Bomb Ledge Clip

Discovered by Aruki & KlydeStorm

This was the first method of skipping the trials that was found, although it used a frozen bokoblin instead of a bomb which is way more difficult. To do this Ledge Clip you need to make your way over to the door frame as shown in the video using an Item Slide.

1. Dry Roll towards the edge and Ledge Hang off of it.
2. Move as close to the wall as possible, then climb up.
3. Hold ZL for the entirety of this trick form here forward until you are experienced with it.
4. Pull a bomb, then drop it with B after it is fully above Link's head.
5. Backflip and pull the Deku Leaf when you are roughly at the same level as the ledge the bomb is on.
6. Float towards the ledge while facing a slight bit towards the wall you are about to clip in to, and cancel the leaf right before you hit it.
7. Tap right on the control stick (or left if you use the other side compared to the video) with the correct timing to be pushed out of bounds. There is a 4 frame window.
8. Pull the Deku Leaf before you fall too far.
9. Provided you are still holding ZL, hold down-right to turn towards the loading zone.
10. Glide to the loading zone. Leaf Pump as needed.

It is a common misbelief that you need to tap towards the wall on the control stick to move towards the wall. Do not do this. For Ledge Clips you will always tap away from the wall you're trying to go through. The item in turn then pushes you through the wall.

There is an older tutorial for this trick that uses the opposite ledge than shown in the video above. If you choose to follow this tutorial you can ignore the part about leafing between the pillars in the room and just Item Slide to the door frame in question.

Bomb Roll Clip

Discovered by Nap42

You can use a bomb to push you far enough in to the wall for you to do a roll clip.
1. Kill the bokoblin.
2. Dry Roll and Ledge Hang off the edge to your left.
3. Climb up and pull a bomb, then drop it with B after it is fully above Link's head.
4. Backflip and pull the leaf once you are at the same level as the ledge.
5. Grab the ledge between the wall and the bomb.
6. Do a partial Ledge Clip as soon as possible and then climb up the wall and perform a Roll Clip to the left.
8. Leaf Pump to the loading zone as need be.

Note that the same exact method is possible using a skull instead of a bomb, which can be useful when skipping bombs.

Grab Roll Clip

A roll clip to skip the trials from the lower level is possible with nothing but the Deku Leaf. To do this you need to grab the ledge so that practically all of Link's left hand is in the wall. This works for 2 ledges: on top of the door frame or on the ledge next to the door.

1. Kill the bokoblin (unless you're doing it on top of the door frame).
2. Grab the ledge and move as close to the wall as possible.
3. Climb up the ledge then click the right stick to enter first person camera
4. Align the B button correctly in first person to get a good angle.
5. All while holding ZL, sidehop, pull the Deku Leaf around the same time as shown
6. Perform a leaf pump as soon as possible. This will make you go forward without holding the control stick.
7. Cancel the Deku Leaf around the same time as shown in the video. A good visual cue is the black mark on the wall. You want to cancel the leaf right when you first are next to it.
8. Climb up and ledge and hold left.
9. Time a roll clip, followed by hitting the Deku Leaf button.
10. Leaf or leaf pump your way to the loading zone Optionally, you can tap down on the c-stick at some point before cancelling the leaf for the ledge grab to make it easier.

On top of the door frame:

Next to the door:

Leafless

Discovered by Quaforce

It is also possible to skip the Trials by using a series of tricky item slides. First, item slide to a door frame and then item slide to the horn above the Trial Door to grab it. You can then jump and grab a ledge to get on top of the very large door frame. On that door frame, there is a slope on the right side that you can clip through by item sliding sideways into it. This will make you fall down inside the door frame. You still don't quite have access to the loading zone from there, but there is a tiny gap in between the door and the wall, which you can item slide through to hit the loading zone.

Sidle into Door

Discovered by Nap42

Once you finally skip the trials, you will be on a staircase that has miniblins spawning at the top. Climb it and go through the door to make your way towards the tower's second section. You can also sidle on the side of the door to trigger the loading zone and skip opening it which is frames faster.

Forsaken Fortress Warp Room

Once going through the loading zone, you will be in a room with two doors and another stone wall that looks like it can be broken down. It can. Through the left door is a room that allows you to spawn a warp portal to the Forsaken Fortress provided you have the boomerang. It also "spawns" the King of Red Lions which you use to go back and forth through said portal. Funnily enough, the King of Red Lions is already spawned, but waiting out of bounds for you to hit the switches. With cheats you can get to him while out of bounds and do some silly stuff.

It is also possible to open the warp portal without the boomerang, by shooting the switches in very quick succession with the bow and the gyroscope. This allows one to be able to obtain the skull hammer after performing the Early Master Sword sequence break, since leaving through the portal avoids loading Tower of the Gods after Hyrule 2, which is the trigger for Forsaken Fortress 2 to become Forsaken Fortress 3 (and FF3 doesn't have the Phantom Ganon fight). If you decide to leave through this portal without having obtained Farore's Pearl, KoRL will try to auto-sail to Windfall, causing a softlock. That can be avoided however, because there is one frame for Link to leave the boat before the softlock occurs.

Light Arrows and the Phantom Ganon Maze

The door to the right is the path you need to take to get the Light Arrows. It is possible to skip these and we will go over that shortly. Once going through the door a short cutscene will play showing you the lights on the wall in a specific order. This is the order you would need to hit the switches in the other room to trigger the warp. Anyway, to continue towards the Light Arrows, jump down the pit. You can pull the Deku Leaf while over the pit to trigger the loading zone faster.

Upon the next area loading you will find yourself in a maze. The maze is the same every time so it is to your benefit to remember the directions for it. They are as follows...

1. Back
2. Left
3. Straight
4. Left
5. Right
6. Straight

When going through the final (6th) door, you can use a bomb pull before opening the door to skip a cutscene on the other side of the door as it bars itself shut behind Link. For more on that click here.

In this room you will fight Phantom Ganon for the Light Arrows. The fight is very short and extremely easy. He has three different attacks. He can throw a white orb at you, a red orb, or he can spawn all around you with four clones. If he spawns in the air he will be using either the white or red orb. If he spawns on the ground you will know it.

• If he spawns in the air and goes to throw a white orb at you, get as close to him as possible before he throws it. If you are close enough you will only have to hit it back once for it to stun him. Simply slash him as he falls to the ground to kill him.

• If he spawns in the air and holds a red orb above his head, charge a spin attack by holding B. When he throws the orb it will break in to eight smaller orbs. Release your spin attack when they are all about to hit you so they all fly back to him. Hit him with your sword when he falls to the ground to kill him.

• If he spawns all around you with his clones, simply hit the one that spawned behind you. The real one will always spawn behind you so it is best to stand still once you walk forward a little bit. Hit him again to finish him off.

Open the chest for Light Arrows. Go through the door that opens to head back to the main room for this area.

Skip the Light Arrows

Discovered by Mugg

Break a pot containing a heart and, with only 1/4 heart, place a bomb next to Link and throw the boomerang at the heart. Then perform a zombie hover to reach one of the door frames before the boomerang comes back to Link. The boomerang will heal Link, and once up there you can perform a ledge clip or a roll clip to go out of bounds and then leaf to the loading zone leading to the final staircase. This trick skips the entire maze as well as picking up the light arrows. However, this also requires doing a backflip lift-off for the hover, since pulling out the sword too early will also make the boomerang come back to Link too early. It is most likely TAS-only.

Skip using the Light Arrows against Phantom Ganon

Parry by ChaoticAce, Item Slide by MrAlberto, Clipping method by Kazooie

After obtaining the light arrows, you will go back to the main room, where Phantom Ganon's final battle occurs. By performing a parry off a ground spawn from Phantom Ganon, with the right position and angle, you can land on the door frame without needing a zombie hover. From there, you can perform a very precise item slide in order to grab the wall without using the Deku Leaf:

1. Aim Link towards the front of the room (perpendicular to the wall)
2. Charge an item slide into the wall
3. Hold target
4. Move link towards the very front edge of the ledge
5. Hold an angle so that link begins rapidly moving backwards
6. Release target
7. Just before link falls off of the door frame, hold a direction so that link flings towards the opposite corner of the doorframe. Link will now shoot forwards towards the door, but make sure he does not jump or else this will not work. Now hold up while link is falling to make him grab the top of the door.

NOTES on the item slide:

1. The top of the door has a lip over it which is raised up over the sides and lowest in the middle
2. This lip protrudes out farther than the door itself. So link cannot grab if he is pushed back by this lip unless he has enough forward momentum to travel forwards in time to reach the top of the door to grab it. The speed required for this far exceeds that of link's jumping speed, thus it is impossible to grab the door if link jumps.
3. When you item slide over to the door the lip will push you back and prevent you from grabbing everywhere except for the edge of the door (the opposite corner from where you are item sliding works best). This is convenient because in order to clip after grabbing the top of the door you need to move to either side of it anyway.

Once you've grabbed the wall, tap right (or left) and, as Link starts moving, hold all the way up on the control stick. Because Link can't climb up from that ledge, he will start sliding in the direction you chose. This slide will allow him to climb up the wall and go OoB on either the right or left side of the wall. It is very easy to get crushed once OoB: if you climb on the right side then jumping into the loading zone causes no issue, but if you climb on the left side you must make sure you pulled out your sword before the item slide, so that you can slash your way to the loading zone (one frame window).

This trick does NOT skip the light arrows, since Phantom Ganon will only spawn in that room if you did get them in the maze. This trick is required to skip Magic since you cant shoot light arrows without the Magic Meter.

Note: If you have the deku leaf, then you can simply glide to the wall instead of performing the precise item slide. You can also perform a ledge clip or a roll clip from the door frame. Also note that the clipping method used on top of the door frame can be used anywhere there is a ledge you can grab but doesn't allow you to pull yourself up.

Grand Staircase Battle Skip

Discovered by Mugg

At the very top of the grand staircase, align with the pillar on the left as shown. Backflip and pull out the deku leaf. Just as you are about to hit the ledge, put the deku leaf away to grab it, and shuffle your way as far to the right as you can go. Now climb up the ledge and immediately jump towards the wall to clip through it. If you wait to long Link will simply fall off the ledge and you will have to start over. From here, make your way to the loading zone, being careful not to fall.

Puppet Ganon Cutscene Skip

Discovered by LegendOfLinkk

After performing the Grand Staircase Battle Skip, you can throw a bomb behind the door. On Hero Mode and with 1/2 heart left, leaf under the loading zone. The bomb will damage boost you up into the loading zone. By hitting the loading trigger after getting hit and before having 0 health, the fade-out will happen and you will successfully cancel the Puppet Ganon cutscene.

Because the Puppet Ganon fight can only trigger at the end of the cutscene, and because that cutscene can only play once, you will have to perform a zombie hover with almost perfect mashing towards one of the pots containing a fairy, and get healed by it, in order to reach the final fight.

Setup 1

This is the fastest known setup but is the least consistent due to the fact that it is movement based.

Discovered by mralberto

Setup 2

This is a slower and the most consistent setup known.

Discovered by mralberto

Puppet Ganon Skip

Method 1: OoB Clip and Warp Pot Snipe

Discovered by Demon and Joaish

On the HD version of The Wind Waker, the warp pot as well as the morths at the top of the room are loaded at all times (contrarely to the SD version). This allows one to hookshot up the the platforms on the side and either ledge clip at the platforms, or roll clip on the right side of the door frame, to clip OoB.

Once OoB, go in the correct corner (on the right side when facing the warp pot after entering the room), turn around, aim at the center of the pillar, perform 2 spaced out stabs and aim straight up and slightly right of the corner. Shoot a fire arrow. This should hit and kill the morth at the top of the room. The morth lit on fire has a chance to open the warp pot before it disappears. Once done, repeat the operation on the opposite side of the room for the other morth. This time, the setup is the same but the stabs need to be consecutive, and you need to aim dead center.

Once both shots have been performed, try entering the warp pot. There's about a 33% chance it will be opened. If it's opened you just skipped Puppet Ganon. if it's not opened then savewarp and come back to try again.

Method 2: Zombie Hover - Healing with Keeses

originally Discovered by Aruki, HD setup by gymnast86

In Puppet Ganon's chamber, angle yourself towards the path that leads to Ganondorf. Deminish you health to 1/4 heart and zombie hover. This is a mostly luck based hover, as the conditions have to be perfect in order to prevent from getting knocked down by the Keese. Once you are above the red wooden entrance to the Ganondorf battle, wait for a few Keese to come and attack you. In order to survive the hover, you will need to kill a keese while hovering and get the heart they drop. There are several ways to do so:

You can kill the keese with bombs: equip the deku leaf and bombs. Quickly press the button the bombs are on, followed by the deku leaf, then B. If done correctly, you will drop a bomb and get a heart drop from the Keese.

You can kill a keese using the bow.

Or you can kill a keese using the boomerang.

Out of these three methods, only the bombs one is close to RTA-viable.

Method 3: Zombie Hover - Healing with Fairy Pot

discovered by gymnast86

If you performed Puppet Ganon Cutscene Skip, there will be no keese spawning in that room, and so the hovers above won't work. Instead, you can still manage to reach the Ganondorf fight by hovering to a fairy pot, breaking it, and getting healed by the fairy.

Method 4: Zombie Hover - Turn-around to Warp Pot

Discovered by MrAlberto

This method relies on zombie hovering up to the final platform, hitting yourself with bombs to turn around while dead and then opening the warp pot at the top (or heal with the fairy pot next to the warp pot, harder). This method has no RNG if the Puppet Ganon cutscene was skipped.

Method 5: Zombie Hover - Turn-around to Fairy Pot

Discovered by bowserisbored

Bomb Dropping Mechanics

Explanation by Aloakirby

Bomb angle change mechanics

Figured out by mralberto, diagram by mralberto

Extended Red Rope Climb

Right as you land on the rope you can mash A and B for as long as the rope doesn't start swinging to climb much faster. The height that you can go up can be drastically increased if you hold ZR while mashing. The higher you go, you need to slow down your mashing to not fall off.

Skipping the Grappling Hook in Puppet Ganon's room

It is possible to get up the Puppet Ganon room without having to perform one of the many Puppet Ganon Skip methods or use the grappling hook.

First Grapple Skip

Setup 1

Discovered by Mr Ike

For the first grapple requirement, you can hover from the chain to the pots and drop a bomb to blow them up and heal with the hearts.

Setup 2

Discovered by trogWW

For this setup, target the chain, jumpslash up, pull wind waker to 180 degree turn, backflip 3 times (make sure you tap down on the stick for each backflip so that link doesn't move between each flip), sword slash, hold shield and backflip again.

Second Grapple Skip

There are 3 ways to skip the 2nd grapple requirement. The first possibility is to shoot a morth with a fire arrow through the ceiling, and hope that the morth on fire gets knocked back into the warp pot to burn the lid early. This method is the fastest but it is also RNG, as the morth will not always fly back far enough or high enough for it to work.

Discovered by demon

A more consistent way to skip this grapple requirement is to zombie hover to the warp pot and drop a bomb to open it early. Then land and die and come back to take the warp pot up.

Finally you can also hover to a fairy pot.

Morth Hover

Discovered by gymnast86

In Any%, the hoookshot is skipped, and thus cannot be used to gain access to the Ganondorf fight. Instead a Zombie Hover must be used in conjunction with a morth enemy dropping a heart to successfully get on top of the platform. To do this, you want to stand close to a morth, and then stab it (forward + B) so that Link will kill the morth and it will attach onto Link at the same time. (This sets the flag for the morth to drop a heart when it dies, which can only be activated if Link kills the morth with his sword). Now Link can shake off the morth with a roll (the direction of which is random, but will always be somewhere behind Link), and use the Leaf to blow the morth up onto the platform which has the loading zone to the Ganon fight. After the morth has been shaken off though, Link cannot move at full speed as this will causes the morth to try and move towards Link. This is advantageous after the morth is already up on the platform however, as it can be used to position the morth wherever you want.

Once the morth is positionned, you can start the hover using one of two methods.

With Bombs

If you have bombs, position the morth at the edge of the platform where Link can shoot it with an arrow from below. From here we can place down a bomb, shoot the morth, then press B to immediately slash the bomb and begin the Zombie Hover. Once you've hovered up to the heart, proceed into the loading zone.

With Fall Damage

Discovered by gymnast86, Ian_Miles, SmokeyRuns, azer67, mralberto, linkus7 and more

This method should only be done if you don't have bombs, as it is much slower and much harder. For this method, place the morth anywhere on the platform, but make sure he is pretty far back. Get into position on the left side of the warp pot, facing the final platform, and with the bow aim at the edge of the yellow texture to get the correct angle. Walk sideways left (the morth won't move) and press B to perform a mid-air jumpslash once you slip off. This will make you jumpslash down, recoil against the middle level and land at the bottom of the structure, near the chain. This way, you will take fall damage as you land, skipping the need for blowing yourself up with bombs.

Then, perform a jumpslash (5 frame window) and mash B to Zombie Hover. You will need very good mashing in order to get up to the left side of the platform. Grind against the left pillar to get to the top and then grind against the ceiling. Because the recoil of the jumpslash gave Link 27 speed, decreasing by one unit each frame, the morth will have moved during 12 frames while you were taking fall damage, and so the morth won't be where you left him exactly. Grind against the top of the platform until you are right above the morth. Then stop mashing and press the bow button twice (once to pull out the bow and once to shoot an arrow). If your second bow press was done frame perfectly, the arrow will kill the morth. Immediately mash B again to zombie hover (make sure you didn't fall under the platform), and pick up the heart. Proceed to the Ganon fight.

Notes:

• Sometimes, when walking sideways off the platform, you will grab the ledge and fall straight down. This can be avoided by making sure you are very close to the ledge before walking off (Link's left feet will be lower if you position yourself correctly).
• If the mid-air arrow goes in a completely off direction (towards Link's left), this means you did an action (such as a jumpslash) exactly one frame after shooting the arrow. This will make the bow shot fail. Avoid this if you want to get this trick. This is called a glitched arrow.
• After the bowshot, you will need to get back up to the platform. When you are zombie hovering with an almost straight angle towards the platform, it can happen that one of the jumplsashes from your hover makes you have exactly the same height as the platform. This will make you land immediately and you will die. There is nothing much you can do about this.
• The heart from the morth can spawn in basically any direction. It can happen that the heart drops too much to the sides so you can't pick it up. The trick will fail if that happens.

The reason for the mid-air bow snipe is that shooting the morth before starting the hover would make the heart disappear before you can get to it.

With Fire Morth Damage

Discovered by deothos

Instead of taking damage with bombs or fall damage, you can take damage from a morth on fire. Place a morth on top of the final platform after doing the stab trick, place a morth under the platform (you can use pots to push the morth around), then go in front of the ledge morth, and align yourself with the one that will drop the heart. Shoot the morth on the final platform with a normal arrow then the morth right in front of you with a fire arrow. This will cause you to take damage and make you slide back slightly. You can then hover to the heart.

Morth Glitch

It may happen to you that the morth doesn't get off Link when you roll. This is called morth glitch and is caused by triggering a loading with a morth attached to Link. This can make the hover really annoying to perform, as only a bonk will make the morth get off Link when it happens. To avoid this, do not trigger loadings with a morth attached to Link (this includes dealing the final blow to Puppet Ganon Phase 3 with a morth, entering a warp pot with a morth, and dying with a morth). To fix the glitch, quit the game and go back to the wii u menu.