All Heart Pieces in Zelda Ocarina of Time: 36 Pieces, Sorted by What You Need First
There are 36 Pieces of Heart in the Switch 2 remake. Four make a heart, so that is nine extra hearts, which sits alongside eight Heart Containers from dungeon bosses and your starting three to reach the full twenty-heart maximum.
The problem with almost every list of these is that it goes by region. Which is useless, because the hunt is not a geography problem – it is a dependency problem. You cannot get the Lakeside Laboratory piece without the Golden Scale. You cannot get five of them without Magic Beans planted years earlier. You cannot get the House of Skulltula piece without fifty tokens.
Go region by region and you will walk into Zora’s Fountain three separate times.
So this sorts all 36 by what you need in your hands first, which is how a single-pass 100% run actually gets planned. Then the pieces Nintendo genuinely moved for this version, because several did.
What the Remake Changed About the Hunt
Before locations, the mechanical changes – because some of them alter how you collect, not just where.
| Change | What It Means |
|---|---|
| Press A to collect | Walk near a piece and press A. The Boomerang and grappling hook can no longer grab them for you |
| Pieces restore magic | A small but real incentive to grab one before a fight rather than after |
| “Fairy’s Thoughts” hints | Notes on walls and trees point toward some pieces |
| World map counter | The map shows how many Heart Pieces and Gold Skulltulas you still have outstanding |
| Echo Gem replaces the Stone of Agony | The Stone is gone. The Echo Gem becomes available at 20 Gold Skulltulas and reacts near Secret Grottos |
| More hidden holes | Rocks over hidden holes can be bombed, there are more holes than before, and the Song of Storms opens extra ones |
| Dampe’s gravedigging is faster | The minigame moves at a quicker pace than the original |
| D-Pad quick-equip | Lens of Truth and boots swap instantly, which matters for two specific pieces |
The world map counter is the single biggest quality-of-life change in the hunt. The original gave you no running total, which is why a generation of players finished at 19 hearts with no idea which piece they had missed. You can now see the number.
The Echo Gem swap matters too. With the Stone of Agony removed, grotto detection is gated behind 20 Gold Skulltula tokens rather than a Great Fairy visit, which quietly makes the Skulltula hunt a prerequisite for part of the Heart Piece hunt.
All Heart Pieces in Zelda Ocarina of Time You Can Get Early as a Child
Start here. These need little or nothing beyond showing up.
- Lon Lon Ranch – inside the grain silo building, behind pushable blocks.
- Kakariko Village – from an NPC on the blue-roofed building.
- Kakariko Village – on a roof to the south of the village.
- Zora’s Domain – the torch-lighting challenge.
- Kakariko Graveyard – a grotto behind the back-right grave. Note the remake change: this piece sits in a different grave than it did originally, and no longer requires the Sun’s Song.
- Kakariko Graveyard – Dampe’s gravedigging tour, now a faster minigame.
- Castle Town – returning the missing dog at night.
- Zora’s River – a chest reached by Cucco flutter-jump from a grotto.
- Zora’s River – the multi-level path, also by flutter-jump.
- Gerudo Valley – a chest reached by Cucco flutter-jump.
- Gerudo Valley – a hidden area to the north.
- Kakariko Windmill – a timed jump onto the ledge.
Twelve pieces before you have meaningfully equipped yourself. The Cucco flutter-jump accounts for three of them, so get comfortable with it early.
Group Two: Bombs
Two pieces sit behind explosives, and one is easy to walk past.
- Goron City – a pot exposed by lighting the torches, which you then bomb open.
- Plus every bombable rock over a hidden hole, now more numerous than in the original.
The remake’s expanded hole count works in your favour here. With the Stone of Agony gone and bombing promoted as the detection method, carrying bombs is a general-purpose Heart Piece strategy rather than a specific errand.
Group Three: The Ocarina and Its Songs
Four pieces are musical, and one of them is the game’s best joke.
- Lost Woods – the Skull Kids, through repeated Ocarina songs. In the remake, notes appear on screen and no longer require rhythm timing, and in the second round the Skull Kid plays only once.
- Lost Woods – the lone Skull Kid, after playing Saria’s Song.
- Zora’s River – the frog choir, by playing the Song of Storms to them as a child.
- Zora’s River – the frog mimic minigame, a separate reward from the same spot.
The Skull Kid sessions being made easier is a genuine mercy. The original required you to match a rhythm by ear, which is a hard ask in a game with no visual metronome.
Group Four: Magic Beans, and the Timing Trap
Five pieces require Magic Beans, and this is where a 100% run goes wrong more than anywhere else.
- Kakariko Graveyard – ride the bean plant as an adult.
- Lake Hylia – the laboratory roof, by bean.
- Death Mountain Trail – the bean plant outside Dodongo’s Cavern.
- Death Mountain Crater – a bean planted during the child era.
- Desert Colossus – the bean plant near the Spirit Temple.
The trap is the time gap. Beans are planted by Child Link in soft soil and only grow into ridable plants seven years later as an adult. If you reach adulthood without having planted them, you have to travel back, plant every single one, and return.
The beans also cost money, and the price rises with each purchase – which is one reason the remake’s larger wallet matters. Your starting wallet now holds 200 rupees instead of 99, and every upgrade holds more.
So the single most valuable thing on this page: buy and plant every Magic Bean spot during your first stretch as a child, before you ever pull the Master Sword. Nothing else in the Heart Piece hunt punishes bad sequencing this hard.
One remake correction worth knowing: the Death Mountain Trail bean piece is now obtained legitimately by riding the plant. In earlier versions, jump manipulation let you reach it far ahead of schedule. That route is closed.
Group Five: Adult Items
Four pieces are straightforward once you have the right tool, and impossible before.
- Zora’s Fountain – on the underwater floor, reachable with the Iron Boots.
- Zora’s Fountain – across the ice blocks, after the Ice Cavern opens the area up.
- Lake Hylia – inside the Lakeside Laboratory tank, which needs the Golden Scale from the fishing pond.
- Gerudo Fortress – a chest reached with the Longshot.
- Castle Town – the back-alley chest minigame, which needs the Lens of Truth.
The D-Pad quick-equip is genuinely useful for two of those. Swapping to Iron Boots or the Lens without opening a menu turns the Zora’s Fountain and back-alley pieces from fiddly into trivial.
Group Six: Fifty Gold Skulltula Tokens
One piece, and it is the longest-term commitment in the game.
- Kakariko Village – the House of Skulltula, at 50 or more tokens.
There are 100 Gold Skulltulas in total, so this is halfway. And because the Echo Gem arrives at 20 tokens and is now your only grotto detector, the Skulltula hunt and the Heart Piece hunt have become more entangled in the remake than they were. Do not treat them as separate projects.
Group Seven: Minigames and Timed Challenges
Six pieces come from performance rather than exploration, and these are the ones people leave until last and then regret.
- Castle Town – Bombchu Bowling Alley.
- Lake Hylia – the fishing pond, for a fish of 55cm or larger.
- Kakariko Graveyard – Dampe’s race, finished in under one minute.
- Gerudo Fortress – Horseback Archery, at 1000 points or more.
- Kakariko Windmill – the timed ledge jump.
- Zora’s River – the frog mimic minigame.
Two notes. The fishing pond is also where the Golden Scale comes from, so one trip serves two pieces. And Horseback Archery requires Epona, which requires Epona’s Song from Malon – who in the remake hands over the Weird Egg immediately after your first meeting, and it hatches without waiting for morning.
The All Heart Pieces in Zelda Ocarina of Time Locations That Moved
| Piece | What Changed |
|---|---|
| Death Mountain Crater Business Scrub | Moved from the Ice Cavern to Death Mountain Crater – the piece that travelled farthest |
| Hyrule Field, chest under an outcropping | A new time-travel puzzle. The chest is sealed as a child and empty as an adult. Read a Fairy Note as an adult, then open it as a child |
| Hyrule Field, grotto shop | A new time-travel puzzle. Learn a shop password from a Fairy Note as an adult, then give it to the Business Scrub as a child |
| Death Mountain Trail bean piece | Jump manipulation no longer reaches it early. Ride the plant |
| Kakariko Graveyard grave piece | Sits in a different grave, and the Sun’s Song is no longer required |
Those two Hyrule Field puzzles are the most interesting additions. Both require reading a Fairy Note as an adult and acting on it as a child, which is a neat inversion – the original’s time-travel puzzles generally had you act as a child and see the result as an adult. These run the other direction, and they are new content rather than relocated content.
Beyond those five, guide coverage notes that some pieces have been shifted into chests or nudged slightly without specifying which. So if a piece is not where three decades of memory says it should be, that is expected rather than a bug.
One sourcing note. At least one published list mislabels which numbered piece the Hyrule Field grotto shop sells, contradicting its own entry a few lines later. With the game less than a day old, cross-check any numbered list against the in-game map counter rather than trusting a single source’s ordering.
The Hall of Fallen Foes
Worth a mention for completionists, because it is brand new and it is not a Heart Piece source.
The remake adds the Hall of Fallen Foes, an area for reviewing enemies and rematching bosses. It does not grant Heart Pieces, but it is where a 100% run’s record-keeping lives, and it gives you a way to fight bosses again without a replay.
Also new: Business Scrub Seeds, which summon a Business Scrub anywhere. Given that two of the moved Heart Piece puzzles involve Business Scrubs, that item is more relevant to this hunt than it first appears.
The Efficient Order
Pulling the dependency logic together, the sequence that avoids backtracking.
- As a child, before anything else: collect the twelve low-requirement pieces, and plant every Magic Bean spot.
- Still a child: the Ocarina pieces, once you have the relevant songs, and the Goron City pot once you have bombs.
- Still a child: the two new Hyrule Field puzzles need adult Fairy Notes first, so note them and return.
- After the Master Sword: harvest all five bean plants, then collect the Iron Boots, Golden Scale, Longshot and Lens of Truth pieces.
- Throughout: push Gold Skulltulas to 20 for the Echo Gem, then to 50 for the House of Skulltula piece.
- Last: the timed minigames, when your hearts and equipment make them comfortable.
- Check the map counter before declaring yourself finished.
That ordering costs you one extra childhood visit rather than four adult ones.
FAQ
How many Heart Pieces are in the Ocarina of Time remake?
36, which make nine hearts. With eight dungeon Heart Containers and your starting three hearts, that reaches the twenty-heart maximum.
Have any Heart Pieces moved in the remake?
Yes. The Ice Cavern piece has moved to Death Mountain Crater, the graveyard piece sits in a different grave and no longer needs the Sun’s Song, and two Hyrule Field pieces are entirely new time-travel puzzles involving Fairy Notes.
Can you still track how many you have left?
Yes, and this is new. The world map shows how many Heart Pieces and Gold Skulltulas remain outstanding, which the original never did.
What replaced the Stone of Agony?
The Echo Gem, which becomes available at 20 Gold Skulltula tokens and reacts when you are near a Secret Grotto. The Stone of Agony has been removed entirely.
What is the biggest mistake in a 100% run?
Failing to plant the Magic Beans as a child. Five pieces require ridable bean plants, and beans only grow across the seven-year gap, so skipping them means an extra trip back through the Temple of Time.
Can the Boomerang still collect Heart Pieces?
No. You now walk near a piece and press A. The Boomerang and grappling hook cannot pick them up, and pieces also restore magic when collected.
Which Heart Pieces need minigames?
Six – Bombchu Bowling, a 55cm fish at Lake Hylia, Dampe’s race under a minute, 1000+ points at Horseback Archery, the timed windmill ledge jump, and the Zora’s River frog mimic game.
Nine Hearts, One Planting Session
Thirty-one of the 36 pieces are findable whenever you happen to arrive with the right tool. Five of them depend on something you had to do seven in-game years earlier, in a body you no longer have, in soil you may never have noticed. The Magic Beans are the whole game’s design philosophy compressed into a gardening errand – act now, see the result much later – and they are the reason people finish Ocarina of Time at nineteen hearts.
The remake softens almost everything else. The map counts for you. The hints are written on trees. The Skull Kids no longer demand rhythm. Dampe digs faster. The boots and the Lens swap on the D-Pad. Even the wallet is bigger, which matters when bean prices climb.
What it does not do is plant your beans. Do that first, finish the childhood pieces while you are down there, and the other nine hearts arrive almost by themselves.
Then check the map before you tell anyone you are done.
Counted your pieces yet? Share this, bookmark it, and go plant every bean spot in Hyrule before you touch that Master Sword – future you will be grateful. If creative or commercial collaboration brought you here, the T-Minus team is one message away.
