Dark Hyrule Castle

Dark Hyrule Castle, alongside Temple of Droplets, is one of the more broken dungeons in the game; however, unlike Temple of Droplets, it has been completely unaffected by Boss Door Clipping and remains largely exploitable through Ocarina Glitch. The most significant skips were found in January 2008, thus this section remains one of the older sections of the route.

Despite three notable sections where Ocarina Glitch skips large sections of the dungeon, the powerful enemies, tight execution of movement, glitches and the fights with Vaati make Dark Hyrule Castle one of the more difficult sections in the speedrun.

Dungeon Map 

First Key Door Skip

When entering DHC for the first time you are forced to save the stone king in order to get a small key to exit the dungeon basement. This key door can be skipped with 2 different methods going through the same route.

1. Ocarina Glitch

2. Stair Clip

After doing one of these glitches you can remain on layer 2 (upper height) when walking back to the entrance of the sanctuary, going another screen to the right to a dead end room you can then touch the screen transition at the top of the room to enter a room later in the dungeon with skulls and canons. After this transition you will either get pushed through the long block along the transition or you will get stuck inside of the block, to get out when stuck simply equip the cape and do a hop to break out.

From this room you can head south 2 more rooms to a room with green wizrobes and then climb a staircase, this takes you out of the basement and into the main entrance room of the dungeon. Make sure to leave and re-enter the dungeon to set your last entrance point otherwise any Save and Quits done will put you back at the sanctuary entrance.

Cannon Bomb Strategy

In the room with the four cannons it is possible to time a bomb explosion and a sword slash to destroy the cannons without entering the Ezlo Trigger or cloning to hit all the cannon at once. This requires placing and picking up a bomb immediately upon entering the room, throwing the bomb on a certain visual cue and then quickly rolling right and up to align yourself between the two cannons on the right.

Vaati 3 Strategy

During the first phase of Vaati 3 try to get to one of the top corners of the arena behind him and onto the portal, this is to get them stuck at the top on one of the sides which will make them much easier to handle for the rest of the fight. Also when standing on the portal, Vaati 3 is unable to damage you.
Watch which arm Vaati decides to use:

• • Closest Arm: This is good, the arm will come out of the ground below the portal so jump off and get ready to hit it with the cane.

  • Furthest Arm: This is bad, Quickly jump off the portal to the side away from vaati and try and get about 1/4 distance across the arena. This should stop the arm spawning inside the other arm, which will save you a lot of time and health.

This should let you easily line up and use the cane, and then quickly shrink down and go inside the arm.

• • When inside the arm you can try to corner the correct eye but it is also possible to use the magic boomerang and stun the eye to make it easier to hit.

  • You need to hit it with 8 slashes for it to die, you can exit the arm once the eye is dead (you can even leave during its death animation).

Repeat for the 2nd arm, trying to make sure the 2nd arm is as close to the portal as posible to make the final phase easier.