LoZ: ALBW Strategies

Here you can find the best strats of the game The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds. Some strategies are yet still to be found for some minigames and the speedrunning of the game itself, but the players will try to provide the fastest possible strategy they can find, so be sure to check out the page once in a while!

One segment

So far nobody has contributed a strategy to tell the quickest way to beat the entire game from begin to the end. The timing when to start to time your run or to end it is unknown, but if anyone has information, then feel free to contribute!

For the current WRs of the game, go here

Minigame strats

Find your favorite (or your strongest) minigame and read the strategy that has been contributed by the great players of the game, beware that some aren't perfect yet, but that gives you a reason to experiment things with an existing strat. Try things out and who know you'll be mentioned for your contribution :)

Rupee Rush

There are two kinds of Rupee Rush, or actually two different locations. Both are located in the western part, for Hyrule it's below Kakariko Village and left of the Cucco Game location. For Lorule it's below Thieves' Town and left of the bomb shop.

No seperate rules, you need to collect as many rupees as possible you can find within 30 seconds, but beware that there will be no timer!

As you may have figured out or not, but even the greatest players are using a stopwatch to time their run.

Hyrule

At the beginning, the players first thought that everything would be random. All rupees not having fixed placings, but Alex Penev came up with the idea (and others too of course) that some locations had fixed placements.

The strat you will see is made by Alex, it's not confirmed yet that this is the best way to get the highest score, but nevertheless the best way so far discovered :)

Fixed placements:

• Paper north, can be done with 1 wind swing and a sword spin. 2 blue and 3 green are to be found.
• Paper south, in 2 wind swings all paper are then gone, do not spin as it's slower than just walk to the rupees. 2 blue and 2 green can be found.
• The tree, it always contains a blue rupee. Shake it by using the boots and you get the rupee. Alex never mentioned this on the forum, but Michael Arends knew about this fixed placement. It's not sure if this can be part of the 30-seconds strategy without sacrificing rupees...

Fountain:

It's confirmed that the order is random and according to Alex it has fixed odds (no further details so far about that), you must be lucky to get the red and blue ones first which saves time and pressure. You can find 1 red, 2 blue and a lot of green (infinite, but don't pass 30 seconds okay?).

Bushes:

Difficult to guess, but so far there's an estimate of 3 red, 5 blue and some green ones. It yet needs to be confirmed, so this is just a wild guess. The quickest way is to use sword spins for huge fields and eventually take out small ones, order is random due to the random actions of the fountain.

Meteorite:

Hammer is an only option, but what you can get is a few blue ones and mostly green ones (sometimes only green, so luck is needed). Grass around it can contain a blue or green ones, not confirmed yet what the odds are.

Strategy

Alex recently came up with a strategy which gives you a possibility to get 500+ rupees:

Best order:

Dash to the left, wind swing the paper on the left, ignore the covered blue.
Walk up and spin attack the bushes, smash the meteorite and spin, blow away the paper and spin.
Dash the tree and spin the last bushes!

Not mentioned before, but you also see a shiny rock.
The reason why this is mentioned just now is because it's randomly placed.
There are 5 rocks and always 1 rock contains rupees, use your sword to 'throw' the rupees out of the rock.

The rock, just like the fountain, has a random order and fixed odds, but besides that it also has different setups:

• Only green ones, up to 10+. (common)
• Mostly green, but some are blue. Worth up to 20+. (common)
• 1 red, 2 blue and some green ones. Worth up to 35-40. (lucky)
• 2 red, 1-2 blue and rest are green. Worth up to 50+. (very lucky)

Best location for the shiny is near metoerite or paper, saves time.

If done all quick enough, then you've done this within 30 seconds and talked to the girl!

Great players time their run with these methods:

• Timer on 25 seconds starting at the moment that Link can move
  • (For beginners) Set on 20 seconds which gives you more time to finish within the time.
    • (For Experts) Set on 29 seconds when you hear the buzz. 2,5 seconds to finish!
• (For multitaskers) Start stopwatch when you hear the buzz. Game hits 30 seconds if your stopwatch hits 31.5!

Lorule

Details soon

Cucco Game

How hard can it be?
Just evade the Cuccos and you'll be fine, but again there are patterns which are important...

Recently, Michael Arends just beat Bo Garman's time of 298.42 with 299.00
He's disappointed not having the 5-minute mark and not able what was next after 300, but he's proud to get really close.

Tips and tricks

• Stay in the centre as much as possible, because this increase the distance for the Cuccos before they hit you when spawned!
• Always look if you don't get stuck with an action, because it can happen that the Cuccos will take you out by trapping you.
• Keep your focus, without it, you'll fail quicker.

So far the tips and tricks.

Now the following, every 100 seconds the Cuccos change from speed and/or type, here's a list so far known by the players who got this far:

First 100 seconds: Big Cuccos, high speed.
101-200 seconds: Small Cuccos, low speed. High spawn rate.
201-300 seconds: Big Cuccos, low speed. High spawn rate.
301-400 seconds: Small Cuccos, high speed. High spawn rate.
401-500 seconds: Unknown

Hotfoot (Race)

A race! Yes we have a racing minigame!

The strategy of this has been changed and improved many times, especially in January 2014 the route in some parts had big changes. The World Record went down from 44.7 to 43.5 in period from 16th 'till end of January, sounds like it was easy, but according to the first WR holder of 43.5 Michael Arends it was very hard to get 43.5 (same with sub 44 before the 'Diagonal Route' was confirmed to be quicker than the classic straight forward route).
The same WR holder discovered also that going left of the lake instead of right is quicker, but by that the screen below (the one with a lot of trees) gained a route which is very hard to do smooth without making an error. Alex Penev came up with the idea to do different ways with that new route:
A: The original way, hookshot the tree close to you and walk to the tree left and dash diagonal left up.
B: Walk and hookshot the bush, but according to him it's probably the slowest method. Of course this isn't tested yet by Michael who tested the last method that was mentioned:
C: Same as A, but hookshot tree on the left instead of walking to it. This method might be superior to method A since hookshot to tree reduces the chance to bump the tree diagonal left up, but it's not confirmed yet if it's slower or not.
Best time with C method is 43.6, so there's a chance that both A and C can be used for a WR run.

Enough history for now, if you're interested how the race was done before all the changes, then be sure to check out the 'History section' when it's up :)

Strategy

First of all you'll need a Yellow Potion, Hookshot, Pegasus Boots and 20 rupees.

Use the potion before you talk to the racing bro, why? Because likelike will otherwise block your path, before the diagonal route was used, the sparkly monster was an issue too. (it still is, but only in bad luck moments now)

Tip: Always press L AFTER screen scroll! Holding L won't help, be sure to know when by practicing your timing with it!
As for the start, best timing to press L is when you hear the buzz. Take your time to practice and you'll find your rhythm. To stop dashing, tilt to the opposite direction from your dash direction (so if you dash up, tilt down to stop)

Here we go! Dash down and again after screen scroll until you're inbetween the walls. Then dash left-down until you enter the next screen.
Then continue dashing left, stop close to the wall left and continue to dash up. If timed well with the previous dash, you'll squeeze through the big rock.
Stop close to the small rock up ahead, try to align with the diagonal wall right from you, but dash immediately right-up!

Next part splits up in two routes, both seems to be equally quick, so pick a method from one of these two:

• Zigzag (invented by Alex Penev): Dash right-up, stop close to the small diagonal wall, then dash left-up.
• Straight (invented by Michael Arends): Walk a little to the right until you can squeeze the wall up. Dash up to finish this route.

Only difference is the spot where you come out, but both continues with dash left-up. Again, seperate routes coming up!

• Bush method: Stop at the first castle corner, which aligns with the bushes on the left. Hookshot the bush, but the chance to hit the archer instead is pretty high, so watch out for him!
• Dash-only method: Stop just before you crash into the diagonal castle wall, then walk a little, then dash left-up again.

Just as you thought it was the last split, then you're wrong, except the current version is now based on one route, but different methods ;)

Both begins with hookshotting the tree left-up of you, then choose one of the two methods:

• Walk method: Walk to the tree left, then dash left-up, but be aware of the risk that you may hit the tree up ahead...
• Hookshot method: Much easier to succeed with this one! Hookshot the tree left, then dash left-up, chance to hit the tree is pretty small as long you don't go of the line.

After screen scroll, dash up, but stop just after passing the lake wall!
Dashing instead leads to a terrible wall bounce which is one of the worst things you can get in this minigame. That's why you need to walk a bit to the right, lately the tests in end January 2014 came with a result that a tiny movement is already enough to squeeze the wall up ahead. Nice facts don't you think? :)

Anyway, after the 'tiny' walk, continue dashing up, but after screen scroll you'll need to hookshot the tree up ahead ASAP! Because a little green monster will block your path if you don't do it fast enough!
Use your sword to remove the bush which blocks your path, then go around the tree and dash up if you can squeeze the wall up ahead. Watch out though, this corner has an ugly shape which results in a smaller squeezable area...

Finally, continue dashing up, but remember this:

The 3rd tree (or 2nd from left) WILL ALWAYS BE HIT! So time your breaks, if you have faith in Link or just really insane (*cough* like many other top players *cough*), then try to stop as LATE as possible! The closest ever done was about the moment that Link would 'touch' the leafs of the tree, another nice fact :) (come on, it's piece of history okay?)

Then walk to the racing bro with the checkered flag! Best timing to press A is when Link is about a character's distance away (about the size of Link).

Have fun racing and go get the sub 45! :)

Octoball

Octoball, a minigame based on lucky shots.
A strat for this is not really required since you only need to aim and hit.

Of course some tips will be needed for better scoring :)
So take your time and read the smallest strat of the game:

• Tilt up for the pots in front (where crabs are hiding behind it). No tilt is for middle pots behind the crabs and tilt down for the pots on top of trees.
• Based on what direction you like to go, there's a certain timing to hit the ball. Hit the ball quickly for right, hit the ball late for left or in between for the same word

Crabs resets the pot, you better break the top first, then middle and get the crab while keeping the combo hit for the crows (each 3rd in a row is a crow worth 20 rupees, crow is NOT counted to the combo!)

Treacherous Tower

Got a fancy strat? Check out the strats below if you have a more fancy one :)

Beginner

Requirements: 5 Purple Potions and Pegasus Boots

Here we go! But it's actually a purple potion for each floor... the end xD

Intermediate

Requirements: 5 purple potions, Pegasus Boots, Big Spin (100 Maiamais), Nice Fire Rod and full health (sword beam). Optional: Super Net

Always dash up if distance is greater than the closest line of the retangle up!

1F: Sword beam and then use Spin when the wave comes.
2F: Use Spin, but be sure to take out 1 or 2 bats from the centre!
3F: Spin, that's it.
4F: Purple 1.
5F: Hard: Points sword south, use Spin instantly when charged. Easy: Take them out with regular chopping.
6F: Purple 2. But do not dash!
7F: Spin when charged, walk up while doing it!
8F: Sword beam the middle one and charge up spin and release when the northern one is in reach to be hit.
9F: Purple 3!
10F: Point south, Spin, if needed, do it again.
11F: Use the beam and spin when you're sure you won't get hit, use purple.
12F: Spin, walk up while doing it, Fire Rod.
13F: Go to centre, then Spin if they're awaken.
14F: Fire Rod, then take out the gurds near you quickly. Walk up while the fire kills the big guy.
15F: Purple after they started to move!

Advanced

Requirements: 5 purple potions, Pegasus Boots, Big Spin (100 Maiamais), Nice Fire Rod, Nice Ice Rod, Nice Tornado Rod, Foul Fruit, and full health (sword beam)

Additional things to learn: (1) learn to adapt to randomness of enemy movement (react well for good Big Spin placements), (2) always pegasus dash towards the door after you defeat the enemies in the room (unless you're very close to the door), (3) learn to do 45 degree pegasus boots dash towards to door