Ocarina of Time scatters 36 Pieces of Heart across Hyrule and never gives you a counter for them. Some sit in plain sight behind a bomb or a Cucco, others hide behind a minigame score, a Magic Bean planted hours earlier, or a song you have not learned yet. Collecting them in a sensible order saves a lot of backtracking between eras.
Quick answer: Four Pieces make one Heart Container. All 36, plus the eight boss containers and your three starting hearts, max Link out at 20 hearts. The tables below list every piece in collection order.
How 36 Pieces of Heart add up to 20 hearts
Link starts with three hearts. Every dungeon boss drops a full Heart Container, which accounts for eight more. The remaining nine containers come only from Pieces of Heart, and each container needs four pieces. Miss a single piece and your meter stops one quarter short of 20 hearts.
Two things are worth doing early because they pay off much later. Plant Magic Beans at every spot you can reach as a child, and keep enough Rupees on hand for the paid pieces. Dampé’s gravedigging tour alone can eat up to 200 Rupees before it coughs up a piece.
Heart Piece locations 1–19 (before the Master Sword)
| # | Location | Era | What it needs |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Hyrule Castle Town Market | Child | Night; return the white dog |
| 2 | Lon Lon Ranch | Child | Crawlspace behind the crates |
| 3 | Kakariko Graveyard | Child | Sun’s Song |
| 4 | Kakariko Graveyard | Child | Evening; 10 Rupees per dig |
| 5 | Kakariko Village | Either | Watchtower side-hop or Hookshot |
| 6 | Kakariko Village | Child | Cucco or the owl |
| 7 | Lost Woods | Child | Match three Skull Kid songs |
| 8 | Lost Woods | Child | Saria’s Song |
| 9 | Goron City | Child | Lit torches and a bomb |
| 10 | Death Mountain Trail | Child | Backflip, or a Magic Bean |
| 11 | Death Mountain Crater | Child | Climb down the entrance wall |
| 12 | Hyrule Field | Either | Bombs and 10 Rupees |
| 13 | Hyrule Castle Town | Child | Bombchu Bowling prize |
| 14 | Zora River | Child | Cucco |
| 15 | Zora River | Child | Cucco |
| 16 | Zora’s Domain | Child | Deku Stick torch run |
| 17 | Gerudo Valley | Child | Cucco; roll into the crate |
| 18 | Gerudo Valley | Child | Cucco; ladder behind the waterfall |
| 19 | Lake Hylia Fishing Pond | Child | A 10-pound fish |
Two of these are locked to the clock. The white dog, Richard, only wanders the Market at night, and he has to follow you into the Back Alley and through the one door that stays open after dark, where his owner is waiting. Dampé’s Heart-Pounding Gravedigging Tour runs in the Graveyard in the evening, roughly between 18:00 and 21:00 Hyrule time, and costs 10 Rupees per hole. What he digs up is random, so budget for a long session.
The Graveyard tomb piece is the one people miss. Stand at the Royal Family’s Tomb, turn back toward the exit, and pull the fourth grave from the right in the top row. Drop in, freeze the ReDead with the Sun’s Song, then stand on the steps and play it a second time to make the chest appear.
Heart Piece locations 20–36 (after the Master Sword)
| # | Location | Era | What it needs |
|---|---|---|---|
| 20 | Kakariko Graveyard | Adult | Magic Bean; roll into the crate |
| 21 | Kakariko windmill | Adult | Finish Dampé’s race |
| 22 | Kakariko Graveyard | Adult | Second race under one minute |
| 23 | Zora River | Child | Song of Storms |
| 24 | Zora River | Child | Five songs, then the bug game |
| 25 | Hyrule Castle Town Market | Child | Lens of Truth |
| 26 | House of Skulltula | Either | 50 Gold Skulltula tokens |
| 27 | Lake Hylia | Adult | Magic Bean to the lab roof |
| 28 | Death Mountain Crater | Adult | Magic Bean to the pillar |
| 29 | Zora’s Fountain | Adult | Hop the floating ice |
| 30 | Ice Cavern | Adult | Blue Fire |
| 31 | Zora’s Fountain | Adult | Iron Boots |
| 32 | Hyrule Field | Adult | Bombs and Iron Boots |
| 33 | Lake Hylia laboratory | Adult | Golden Scale |
| 34 | Gerudo Fortress | Adult | Longshot |
| 35 | Gerudo Fortress | Adult | 1,000 points at Horseback Archery |
| 36 | Desert Colossus | Adult | Magic Bean to the arch |
Pieces 23 to 26 are still child-era grabs even though they sit this late in the run. They depend on the Song of Storms and the Lens of Truth, so you warp back with the Song of Time once you have both rather than trying to force them earlier.
Gerudo Fortress needs the Gerudo Membership Card before the guards will leave you alone, and the archery game needs Epona and the Bow during the day.
Ocarina songs that hand over a Piece of Heart
Four pieces are pure music. In the Lost Woods, go one screen left from the Kokiri Forest entrance and play Saria’s Song on the stump facing the lone Skull Kid. Go one screen right instead, drop into the lower area, and stand on the stump to summon two Skull Kids who want you to copy their tunes. Match all three rounds and the piece is yours.
The Zora River frogs on the log give up one piece for the Song of Storms. For the second, play every non-warp song for them to make them grow.
- Zelda’s Lullaby
- Saria’s Song
- Epona’s Song
- Sun’s Song
- Song of Time
That unlocks the bug-catching rhythm game, where the frogs leap at notes in a fixed order. The full sequence is short enough to memorize:
A, C-Left, C-Right, C-Down, C-Left, C-Right, C-Down, A, C-Down, A, C-Down, C-Right, C-Left, AMinigame pieces and the scores you need
Five pieces are handed out by minigames, and three of them have hard numbers attached. At the Fishing Pond you need a fish of 10 pounds or more as a child for the first piece. Horseback Archery at Gerudo Fortress wants 1,000 points or better. Dampé’s ghost race has to be beaten a second time in under one minute, which is easiest if you Longshot between the torches.
Bombchu Bowling in the Market is the luck-based one. A Piece of Heart is only one entry in the prize rotation, so you may have to clear the alley several times before it comes up.
The Treasure Chest Game is the opposite. Played blind it is a coin flip through every room, but with the Lens of Truth equipped you can see which chest holds the key and walk straight through to the piece.
The last of the set is not really a game at all. Collect 50 Gold Skulltula tokens, then talk to the freed family member in the upper right corner of the House of Skulltula in Kakariko Village.
Bomb and torch puzzles
Goron City’s spinning urn is the fiddliest of these. Light the torches on the lowest level with a Deku Stick to start the urn turning, then move up a level and drop a bomb or a Bomb Flower inside. It only pays out when the blast lands while the urn’s happy face is turned toward you, so expect a few misses.
Zora’s Domain is a timed torch run. Light a Deku Stick on the torch in King Zora’s chamber, then sprint down the stairs lighting the torches along the way, the one near the shop, the pair in the shallow water, and the last one behind the waterfall. Finish the set and a chest appears.
Hyrule Field holds two bombable spots. The fenced square near the Lake Hylia entrance opens into a grotto where a Business Scrub sells a piece for 10 Rupees. The ground beside the lone tree to the northwest opens into a water-filled grotto, where the piece sits on the bottom and needs the Iron Boots to reach.
Cucco carries and early jumps as Child Link
Six pieces are gated behind a gap you cannot jump, and a Cucco solves all of them. Two sit on platforms along Zora River, reached by carrying a bird up the higher path and floating across near the waterfall. Two more are in Gerudo Valley, one in a crate on a ledge across the canyon and one in the alcove behind the big waterfall, which has a ladder up to it.
In Kakariko Village, a Cucco taken up the construction site scaffolding gets you into the roof opening above Impa’s house, where the piece sits beside the caged cow. Letting Kaepora Gaebora drop you from the top of Death Mountain lands you on the same ledge.
Two more pieces can be taken far earlier than intended. Climbing the Kakariko watchtower and side-hopping left puts you on the roof with the sitting man without the adult Hookshot, and a backflip over the fence above Dodongo’s Cavern grabs the Death Mountain Trail piece without a Magic Bean.
Magic Bean spots to plant as a child
Beans planted in soft soil as a child grow into ride-on leaf platforms by the time you return as an adult. Five of those rides end at a Piece of Heart, so plant them on your first visit to each area.
- Kakariko Graveyard — rides up to the ledge with the crate
- Death Mountain Trail — an alternative to the backflip above Dodongo’s Cavern
- Death Mountain Crater — carries you to the top of the tall pillar
- Lake Hylia — drops you on the Lakeside Laboratory roof, then climb the lookout ladder
- Desert Colossus — the route finishes at the stone arch before the Spirit Temple
The Death Mountain Crater pieces sit in a heat-damage area, so bring the Goron Tunic before you ride or climb.
Iron Boots, Golden Scale and Blue Fire pieces
Once Zora’s Fountain thaws, one piece sits on an isolated block of ice on the right side, reached by hopping across the floating bergs. A second waits on the fountain floor, which means Iron Boots and the Zora Tunic to survive the walk down there.
Inside the Ice Cavern, the piece in the Compass room is frozen in red ice. Scoop Blue Fire into a bottle and pour it on to melt the block.
The Lakeside Laboratory dive is the one piece that cannot be brute-forced. Catch a fish of 15 pounds or more as an adult to earn the Golden Scale from the Fishing Hole Man, then dive to the bottom of the lab’s tank without Iron Boots to claim it.
Gerudo Fortress completes the run. Climb onto its highest roof, then use the Longshot to cross to the chest on the distant ledge.
How to confirm you have all 36
Every pickup throws up the “You got a Piece of Heart!” message and fills another quarter of the ring on screen. When the fourth quarter lands, the game plays the Heart Container fanfare instead and a new heart is added to your meter permanently.
The only reliable check is the heart meter itself. With all eight dungeons cleared and every piece collected, the counter reads 20 hearts. Anything short of that, and the missing pieces are almost always the random ones, so go back to Dampé’s tour and the Bombchu Bowling alley first.
