Movement techniques in OoT

There are basically eight ways of travelling in The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time.

1. You can run.
2. You can run, but do roll-attacks as often as possible while running, which since antiquity has been known to be faster than just running.
3. You can turn sideways, hold down the Z button and side-jump repeatedly.
4. Lastly, you can hold down the Z button and move backwards, which is faster still.
   • And you can do all of these while wearing the Hover Boots.

Running backwards is your preferred means of crossing the world. It seems pretty obvious that running backwards is only useful for reasonably long stretches where you have no obstacles, because you can't see where you're going. However, setting up (aiming for) a backwards run is very, very easy and swift, so with skill you can use it even for relatively short straight runs. Getting your bearings back afterwards is the most time-consuming part. But don't overdo it.

Look at the structure of your future route. Are there right-angled turns coming up? Consider side-jumping when you get to those corners, instead of turning. A good example is the final staircase before you fight Ganondorf. After coming through the door, hold Z. Side-jump left until you hit the wall. Then run backwards, up more stairs, until you hit wall again. Side-jump right until you see the last door ahead of you. Then run for it, rolling all the way. Very simple, very efficient, very fast indeed.

When you're not running backwards, which will be more than half of the game, you will be spending most of your time running forwards, roll-attacking at every available moment. You'll be doing this all the time, all the way through dungeons, everywhere: get used to it.

Exceptions to this rule mainly involve areas where seriously adept manoeuvring is required, for example, on narrow bridges where falling would be disastrous - or areas where rolling straight forwards by a fixed amount is not what you need to do, for example when coming up to doors. You can pull back on the joystick to avoid rolling so far if you roll when you're too close to where you need to go. But you will usually spend almost all your time rolling around the place.

The last major point is that the Hover Boots aren't usually worth it. You have to be spending around 70 seconds running before the time saved by wearing the Hover Boots makes up for the time taken to put them on. And that's flat-out running. If you're in a dungeon, you're going to be stopping and starting and changing directions a lot. Hover Boots are USELESS for stopping and starting and changing direction; they waste more time running on the spot than you can imagine. We advise you to use the Hover Boots only when absolutely necessary, not for regular running about.

Swimming

Remember to tap B when swimming as this makes you swim faster.