The Ocarina of Time, bottles, Hookshot, and Longshot are the best utility items for travel, reaching new areas, and collecting rewards. This ranking for The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time Remake helps you choose which equipment detours deserve your time.
The list covers the Nintendo Switch 2 remake. Dual-purpose tools earn their positions through exploration and collection, not damage. Swords, bows, and combat-focused upgrades sit outside this ranking.
Utility item ranking criteria
Three factors determine each item's tier:
- Breadth: How many different travel, puzzle, or collection problems does it solve?
- Timing: Can you use it across much of the adventure, or does it arrive near the end?
- Optional rewards: Does it help you reach Heart Pieces, Gold Skulltulas, or useful upgrades?
S-tier items support several recurring tasks. A-tier tools offer strong exploration benefits, B-tier items answer narrower needs, and C-tier items have specialized payoffs. A lower rank does not make story-required equipment safe to skip.
| Tier | Item | Reason |
|---|---|---|
| S | Ocarina of Time | Songs handle travel, time-of-day checks, and route-opening puzzles. |
| S | Bottle | One container supports several delivery and collectible tasks. |
| S | Hookshot | Early adult-era access makes it useful across rooftops, vines, and Scarecrow routes. |
| S | Longshot | Its extended reach supports further exploration and optional pickups. |
| A | Magic Bean | Childhood planting creates useful adult-era collectible routes. |
| A | Echo Gem | Nearby-token alerts reduce blind searching during Skulltula hunts. |
| A | Lenses of Truth | Hidden-route detection remains useful beyond the dungeon where you find them. |
| A | Boomerang | Retrieving distant tokens makes childhood cleanup much more productive. |
| B | Iron Boots | Controlled sinking answers specific underwater exploration needs. |
| B | Zora Tunic | Underwater breathing supports extended submerged exploration. |
| B | Silver Scale | An early diving upgrade expands your water-based exploration options. |
| B | Adult's Wallet | Early access to more Rupee storage suits repeated side activities. |
| B | Din's Fire | Torch puzzles give this spell a practical exploration role. |
| C | Giant's Wallet | Its extra storage is less urgent once you have the first wallet upgrade. |
| C | Golden Scale | Its clearest optional payoff is the Lakeside Laboratory Heart Piece. |
| C | Mask of Truth | Information and a Forest Stage reward make it useful for specific detours. |
| C | Skull Mask | Its strongest equipment payoff is the Forest Stage's stick-capacity reward. |
Best exploration tools
Ocarina of Time: build your song toolkit
Recover the Ocarina of Time from the Castle Town moat as Child Link. Your next useful investment is learning melodies as you pass their teachers. The songs in The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time Remake include the Sun's Song, learned in Kakariko Graveyard's crypt, which helps you schedule nighttime collectible stops.
Hookshot and Longshot: prepare their optional routes
Win the Hookshot from Dampe's grave race as Adult Link in Kakariko Graveyard. You can obtain it before entering the Forest Temple, so make the graveyard an early stop after the era change.
Create an easy-to-remember melody for the Lake Hylia scarecrows during childhood. Return as an adult and repeat it to officially learn the Scarecrow's Song. Several dungeon collectibles use the combination of that song and your grappling tool.
Reach Kakariko's upper ledges
Follow the The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time Remake Water Temple route to obtain the Longshot, then check the top of the temple's central column for a Gold Skulltula before finishing your sweep.
Magic Beans and Lenses of Truth: plan around specific rewards
Buy Magic Beans from the seller along Zora River. The Graveyard, Lakeside Laboratory, and Dodongo's Cavern entrance each have planting spots whose adult-era plants lead to Heart Pieces. Planting during childhood lets you collect those rewards on later visits.
Plant now for later routes
The Lenses of Truth come from the Bottom of the Well. Beyond their hidden-path uses, take them to Castle Town's nighttime Treasure Chest minigame to secure its Heart Piece. That is a useful stop before returning to Adult Link.
Find the Treasure Chest prize
Best healing and emergency supplies
Unlock a repeatable healing source
Complete the additional obstacle-course races at Lon Lon Ranch to unlock a Lon Lon Cow at Link's house in Kokiri Forest. This provides a permanent source of free healing supplies, making the ranch detour useful beyond obtaining Epona.
For late-game protection, retrieve the Golden Gauntlets inside Ganondorf's Castle, then leave and lift the matching block outside. The Great Fairy behind it grants Double Defense, halving incoming damage. This is a passive survival upgrade, separate from the item tiers above.
Pair sinking equipment with underwater breathing
Get the Iron Boots in the Ice Cavern, then speak to King Zora for the Zora Tunic. The boots control your depth; the tunic handles breathing. Treat them as a pair when preparing for lengthy underwater routes.
The Silver Scale comes from Zora's Domain's diving minigame. It serves a different purpose from the boots: improving ordinary diving instead of making Link sink to the bottom.
Most useful bottle contents
The remake has five collectible bottles, including an early Potion Shop reward. Their utility comes from handling different objectives with the same container type. Keep your current errand in mind before filling every available bottle.
| Contents | Best use | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| Bug | Flush Gold Skulltulas out of soft soil | Release one at suitable soil patches, including the patch in Kakariko Graveyard. |
| Letter | Advance the Zora storyline | Find the letter-bearing bottle in Lake Hylia's shallows. |
| Big Poe | Work toward another bottle reward | Hunt with the bow and Epona, capture defeated Big Poes, and sell them at Castle Town's Poe shop. |
At soft-soil stops, release your bug before planting a bean. You can combine the token search with preparation for a future traversal route instead of making two separate visits.
Situational items worth carrying
Echo Gem and wallet milestones
Equip the Echo Gem entry in the menu while working through The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time Remake Gold Skulltula locations. Its chime and visible light give you two signals to watch for while checking an area.
Collect the gem from the House of Skulltula during your early token-reward visits. Check the time of day before deciding a location is empty, because many Gold Skulltulas appear only at night.
The same house awards the Adult's Wallet at 10 tokens and the Giant's Wallet at 30. Their remake capacities are 500 and 1,000 Rupees, respectively. Prioritize the first upgrade; pursue the second alongside other token rewards instead of treating storage alone as an urgent objective.
Match specialized tools to the next stop
These items become worthwhile when you have their particular rewards in mind:
- Boomerang: After Jabu-Jabu's Belly, revisit the Zora Fountain wall, Lon Lon Ranch window, and ruined ranch building at night for reachable Gold Skulltulas.
- Din's Fire: Visit the Great Fairy at Death Mountain's peak after Dodongo's Cavern. The spell helps with Zora's Domain's torch-lighting Heart Piece.
- Skull Mask: Wear it at the Forest Stage for the Biggest Deku-Stick Bag before selling it to the Skull Kid. You can borrow it again if needed.
- Mask of Truth: Finish the mask-trading quest, then return to the Forest Stage for a Deku Nut capacity reward. The mask also lets you interact with Gossip Stones and read people's thoughts.
- Golden Scale: Earn it through adult fishing at Lake Hylia, then dive to the bottom of the Lakeside Laboratory tank without Iron Boots for a Heart Piece.
What to prioritize early
Combine utility detours with your story travel in this order:
- Castle Town: Help the Potion Shopkeeper with the bug problem for your first bottle before continuing toward Hyrule Castle.
- Lon Lon Ranch: Complete the Super Cucco minigame for another bottle while visiting Malon to learn Epona's Song.
- Kakariko Village: Return the Cucco lady's scattered birds for a third bottle, then collect nearby nighttime tokens toward your first wallet reward.
- Zora River and childhood return trips: Buy beans and prepare the soil patches you expect to revisit as an adult.
- Before the Temple of Time: Finish the useful Boomerang pickups and record your scarecrow melody. These childhood preparations give your adult-era tools more places to take you.
