25 years after the original release of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, one player finds a particularly useful trick with the game's Ice Arrows upgrade. Even after two and a half decades, Ocarina of Time remains a timeless classic that players are still revisiting. Whether it be with speedruns, randomizers, or other things, some are still finding little tricks or secrets about the seminal Nintendo 64 title. One player managed to find out how one of the game's least-used items is actually somewhat useful in the game.
Ocarina of Time's Ice Arrows can be missed depending on the player, obtainable after tackling the Shadow and Spirit Temples. It can be found in the Gerudo Training Ground mini-dungeon, which is a rather decent side challenge that is considered fairly difficult as well. Completing this rewards players with the arrows of ice, but at this somewhat late stage in the game, many typically write it off as rather useless. However, it turns out these arrows can alleviate a tedious segment of the already tedious Water Temple in a small way.
This discovery was uncovered by a Japanese Twitter user, chikara_shuzei, who posted a small clip of their run through Ocarina of Time's infamous Water Temple on the Switch. In particular, this clip shows a segment before the boss room, where the player will need to avoid three spike traps that are on a ramp. Most players would typically wait until there is a free straight line to run up, as hitting the trap will cause them to fall all the way back down. Link's movement is slightly slowed down due to the elevation on the ramp, which only adds to the aggravation. It turns out, the Ice Arrows can freeze these traps in place, neutralizing their threat.
The translation of the caption to this tweet states they only recently found out about this trick for the first time, noting there are some things they still don't know about The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. Based on the reactions from fans who saw the tweet, many also didn't know this, with several of them replying to the tweet in shock.
Many also expressed their frustrations with bad memories about needing to climb the ramp while trying to avoid the spike traps, with others proudly declaring how they didn't need this trick in order to get past it. Some note that since the Gerudo Training ground was optional and required the Longshot item - which the Water Temple provides - it's the likely reason why fans wouldn't have made this discovery until now. Regardless, it seems like this once-considered useless video game item is actually more useful than one might have thought.
The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time is available now for 3DS, GameCube, N64, and Switch.