History GuideDangIt / TheLegendOfZelda

** Beating the game unlocks the [[NewGamePlus second quest]], which changes everything up on you -- items get moved around, and every level's entrance is hidden (except Levels 1 and 5). It also throws fake walls at you. You'd be stuck in a dungeon, having bombed every wall trying to find a way out, until you realize that some walls just let you walk right through them.

* ''VideoGame/HyruleWarriors'':
** Characters can immediately break into a run by holding down the dodge button. All materials and weapons in the field are automatically collected at the end of a mission. Neither of these things are ever mentioned in-game, although the former is briefly mentioned in the manual. Also for the former, it's averted in Legends, where it's mentioned in a loading screen tip.
** Some of the Hard Mode Skulltula clues can be misleading, as well. The clue for the final stage says you have to defeat ??? (Ganondorf) before ??? (The Castle Keep) is recaptured. This may lead you to believe that you have to capture the Castle Keep and defeat Ganondorf before his forces reclaim it, but you actually have to defeat Ganondorf while the Castle Keep is still in his possession, then capture it.
** There isn't an easy legend for which 8-bit icon is whose in Adventure mode, especially the small heads that show who a reward belongs too. The three Links in particular look almost identical (Link's ears are long and pointed upwards, Young Link's are short and horizontal, Toon Link has a brighter color palette). This is particularly frustrating when a section of the first map is blocked off by "Link" being required and the game telling you he's not unlocked. You actually need Toon Link, who isn't even unlocked via that map. Good luck figuring that out if you're trying to do the adventures in order.

** You can press the B button to skip to the end of specific NPC text, including the repeatable sections of that damn owl, [[WallOfText Kaepora]] [[ShallIRepeatThat Gaebora]]. It would have been a considerable benefit if the game actually tells you this, but it never does.

** Getting the two Pieces of Heart from Granny is a particularly frustrating challenge. First, you have to have the All-Night Mask, which only appears in the Curiosity Shop on the third night of the game if you rescued the Old Lady from Sakon on the first night--and to make matters worse, the Shop only opens at 10:00 PM, or the tail end of the three-day cycle. Then you have to listen to Granny's stories at the Stock Pot Inn while wearing the All-Night Mask, which otherwise has no use in the game. At the end of each tale, she'll ask you a question about the story you chose to hear, and if you pick the right answer, she'll give you the Heart Piece. The first one makes sense...but in an incredible bit of counter-intuitiveness, you have to answer ''wrong'' to get the prize for the second story. And there's no indication that Granny even has two Pieces of Heart to begin with!

** The game's WideOpenSandbox nature trips up ''Zelda'' fans who realize that they can go ''anywhere'' they want once they leave the Great Plateau -- only to go west instead of east and run into a lot of Guardians, [[BossInMooksClothing Lynels]], and harsh weather conditions. The game does suggest that you go east to Kakariko Village, but ''Zelda'' fans are expecting it to {{railroad|ing}} you.

** Given how many side quests are in this game, many of them are involved, but none more so than the Anju and Kafei quest, due to the need to know where each important step has to be done and when.

** Unlike in other ''Zelda'' titles, giving an item to someone requires you to assign the item to a button, and then pressing the button ''while'' talking to them. Other 3D ''Zelda'' games will have you press the button while standing in front of someone to give it to them, so this difference can throw players off.

** There isn't an easy legend for which 8-bit icon is whose in Adventure mode, especially the small heads that show who a reward belongs too. The three Links in particular look almost identical (Link's ears are long and pointed upwards, Young Link's are short and horizontal, Toon Link has a brighter color palette). This is particularly frustrating when a section of the first map is blocked off by "Link" being required and the game telling you he's not unlocked. You actually need Toon Link, who isn't even unlocked via that map. Good luck figuring that out if you're trying to do the adventures in order.
* The final room of [[BrutalBonusLevel Hero's Cave]] in a linked ''[[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaOracleGames Oracle of Seasons]]'' game has eight randomly (so it seems) located treasure chests surrounded by puddles of water and different types of ground. In order to proceed, Link must open the chests in a specific order. It turns out that the topography of the room resembles the world map and the chests' locations correspond to the overworld locations of the main dungeons, and have to be opened in the same order Link visited the dungeons in (or is [[SequenceBreaking supposed to have]]). To make matters worse, not only is the eighth dungeon not located in the overworld but in the [[DualWorldGameplay underground land of Subrosia]] (which is smaller than the overworld), you cannot even look at the world map, because Hero's Cave is technically a dungeon and [[FakeDifficulty shows you the dungeon map instead]].

** You need to learn Saria's Song to enter Dodongo's Cavern, the second dungeon, which requires you to backtrack to the Kokiri Forest when you had basically ''just'' gotten out of there.

* ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaMajorasMask'' is nearly impossible without a guide, to the point that the 3DS version includes an extensive hint system to counteract this. Certain masks are obtained by going to a completely random spot at an arbitrarily fixed time, or by using an item or mask in a completely irrelevant location. The Thieves' Hideout requires you to basically find six bottles with no clues whatsoever.

** The game is generally good at explaining its mechanics, but nothing helps a new player figure out how to cook. The only interaction with a cooking pot with a fire lit is "Sit", which is the same as with regular firepits. In order to cook, the player needs to head into the inventory and have Link "hold" his cooking ingredients (maximum five) and dump them into the pot.

** There isn't an easy legend for which 8-bit icon is whose in Adventure mode, especially the small heads that show who a reward belongs too. The three Links in particular look almost identical (Link's ears are long and pointed upwards, Young Link's are short and horizontal, Toon Link has a brighter color palette). This is particularly frustrating when a section of the first map is blocked off by "Link" being required and the game telling you he's not unlocked. You actually need Toon Link, who isn't even unlocked via that map. Good luck figuring that out if you're trying to do the adventures in order.

** In-game hints encourage you to look for wild horses with lots of Stamina, indicated by the spur icons that appear while running. This is also the only horse stat that you can easily determine without taking it to a stable. The catch is, since Stamina replenishes at the same rate regardless of the horse, it's only really useful for sprinting away from enemies. What the game ''doesn't'' mention is that the highest Stamina horses ''can't'' have maximum Speed, that maximum Speed horses can only be found in certain locations, and that you can only learn a horse's Speed by catching it and taking it to a stable (none of which are near where you can find such horses).

** The Tingle Statues sidequest requires you to bomb a specific point in each of the five major dungeons to cause a treasure chest to appear. Not only is there no hint that this is possible, not only is there no hint of ''where'' you're supposed to bomb (the Compass doesn't even hint that these chests exist), but there's no hint that the ''sidequest'' even exists (unless you played the original or use the Tingle Tuner). Your reward for clearing it is Knuckle appearing on Tingle Island, which is necessary for the Nintendo Gallery (unlike in the original). The real purpose of the quest appears to be to reward people who played the original and know where to go and what to do.

** A puzzle in the second dungeon requires you to kill three enemies in a specific order to reveal a key required to progress. There is a hint earlier in the level which refers to the enemies by name, but the enemies' names are nowhere in the game or the manual. The only way you'd know them is from the manual of a previous ''Zelda'' game.

** Heart containers are more often than not in places where you wouldn't even think to look, especially places where you don't need to go or where you've already been. Only a precious few can be found with a little exploration; without a guide, you're looking at spending ungodly amounts of time searching every corner of the game for these things.

** Level 7 can only be accessed by using the whistle, which everywhere else in the game warps you around. The only hint there is an old man in another dungeon reminding you that "[-THERE ARE SECRETS WHERE FAIRIES DON'T LIVE-]", which tells you where to go but not that you should use the whistle there. And inside the dungeon, you have to go to the room in the upper-right corner, kill all the Wallmasters, and move a block to open a secret passageway, which the game never hints at either.

** If you touch a Bubble, you cannot use your items for a few seconds. But if you touch a Red Bubble, you can't use your items until you either use a potion, go to a fairy spring, or touch a Blue Bubble -- the last of which was totally unintuitive, as the game had been teaching you not to touch Bubbles of any color.

* In ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaPhantomHourglass'', the secret to getting that mark in the Temple of the Ocean King onto your sea chart requires you to physically close your DS to transfer the stamp from one screen to the other. It's a clever bit of FridgeBrilliance (which you might even accidentally stumble upon), but it makes things more complicated if you're playing on a later model DS that you can't close or using the Virtual Console on the WiiU.

* In ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaPhantomHourglass'', the secret to getting that mark in the Temple of the Ocean King onto your sea chart requires you to physically close your DS to transfer the stamp from one screen to the other. It's a clever bit of FridgeBrilliance (which you might even accidentally stumble upon), but it makes things more complicated if you're playing on a later model DS that you can't close.

Every ''Franchise/TheLegendOfZelda'' game is almost contractually obliged to have a Guide Dang It in it somewhere.
* Several Zelda games require the usage of a battle tactic that they've christened "Dead Man's Volley." Essentially, it's playing tennis with Ganon or some manifestation of him by bouncing his projectiles back ''with your sword''. The sword in Zelda does not reflect projectiles any other time, and you're ''never'' informed that this time is different. If you don't remember it from [[MythologyGag a past game]] (or stumble on the customary joke item that works too, like an empty bottle), you're out of luck.
** Most of the time however, you're given an ExpositionFairy that can give you information on enemies you're currently fighting. Those instances don't count, but not all [[TennisBoss Dead Man's Volley]] fights give you this luxury.
* Heart containers in general. While some are in plain sight that requires doing a bit of exploring to acquire, most heart containers are completely hidden in places you wouldn't even think to look, have any need to return to, or are otherwise irrelevant to the main story.
* [[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaI The NES original]] as a whole. It has many things, such as shops, heart containers, and free rupees behind bomb squares and burned trees. Sometimes these are required (such as Level 8), and sometimes they are optional (heart containers). Unlike later Zelda games, there is no visible indication that you can bomb or burn any particular square. Without using a guide or collaborating with another player[[note]]the latter of which was Shigeru Miyamoto's intent[[/note]], the only way to find these spots are to bomb and burn every single square on every single screen. (And you can only carry a limited number of bombs, and the candle can only be used once per screen unless you have the red candle.)
** It's made arguably worse by the fact that the only hints you got for these puzzles were from talking to the memetically-{{Engrish}}y old men in the caves, one of which ("10th enemy has the bomb") wasn't fully deciphered until [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7XwufPIVfMI 20 years later]].[[note]]This hint replaced the one in Japanese: "Look for the Lion Key". Not that it would have made much difference anyway, since the Lion Key (a skeleton key that opens any locked door) is not essential for winning the game.[[/note]]
** The second quest of [[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaI the original]] - items get moved around, and every level's entrance is now hidden, with the exception of Levels 1 and 5. It also throws fake walls at you. You'd be stuck in a dungeon, having bombed every wall and been unable to find a way out, until you realized that some walls let you just pass through if you walked up to them.
** Level 5 in the first quest, where you have to go through a looping screen (the original LostWoods) several times. Level 8 is accessed by burning a conspicuous tree with the candle. And Level 7, how would they know the whistle does more than just warp you around? (Also, to beat Level 7, you have to make your way to the room in the upper right corner, kill all the Wallmasters, then move a block to open a secret passageway, making it a Guide Dang It within a Guide Dang It.) There's also a tombstone in the second quest graveyard that is opened with the whistle.
*** There is an in-game PlayerNudge for how to find Levels 5 and 7. The old woman by the waterfall tells you to "GO UP, UP, UP THE MOUNTAIN AHEAD" if you pay her the middle amount (a GuideDangIt in itself, since by that point most players are conditioned to pay the maximum amount), and an old man in another dungeon reminds you that "THERE ARE SECRETS WHERE FAIRIES DON'T LIVE," but you were still on your own for figuring out to use the whistle there.
** Then, of course, is the angry Goriya who blocks your path in several dungeons, doing nothing except going "GRUMBLE, GRUMBLE". Players were apparently supposed to realize this was his stomach growling, but this would have been a lot more transparent if he'd said "I'M HUNGRY" or something along those lines.
** If you touch a Bubble in the original Zelda, it makes you unable to use any of your items for a few seconds. Annoying, but not unmanageable. Red Bubbles, on the other hand, make you completely unable to use your items until you either: A) use a potion or go to a fairy spring, or B) ''run into a Blue Bubble''. Granted, it ''could'' make sense having one effect cancel out the other, but there is no indication that touching the weaker of the two also completely removes the stronger's effect.
* ''VideoGame/ZeldaIITheAdventureOfLink'' is mostly fairly simple, except for the vague hints people give you (which isn't TOO much of a problem).
** There's also Thunderbird, the 2nd to last boss. The only way to remove its invincibility is to use a certain spell. Which one is it, though? Someone told you "If all else fails, use fire", how about that? WRONG! The mysterious "Spell" spell has to have some use besides turning enemies into Bots and revealing a hidden door. Again, wrong. No, it's the Thunder spell, which costs a majority of your magic bar and is almost completely useless because of it. Not many people suspect the "kill everything on screen for 50% of your magic bar" spell is the one that makes the boss vulnerable.
*** And yes, the boss' name is ''Thunder''bird, but neither the game nor the instruction manual tells you that, which means you'd have to read a guide.
*** And it would be ''more'' logical to assume that a '''''[[ShockAndAwe Thunder]]'''''bird would ''[[FeedItWithFire resist]]'' electricity...
** Let's not forget about the bridge man for the town of Saria, which caused a lot of people grief when they became stuck after only one dungeon! All you are told is "Only townspeople may cross". So do you lure a townsperson over? Do you talk to people around there to be sworn in? Do you have to come back after finding a second dungeon? How about wander randomly in the forest to the north to find a man named Bagu, despite the fact he is never mentioned otherwise? Oh, and his house is hidden, so you have to comb all of those trees, even with the forced battle areas. To top this all off, you need to talk to Bagu, or else you can't get the hammer, which you need to reach the next dungeon! Averted somewhat by a monster in one house. He's asleep, but if you bother him enough times, he tells you to see his 'master' in the woods north of Saria. (But you have to bug him enough times. Your average newcomer to the series might not think to try to talk to him a third or fourth time after only getting "z z z z" from him.)
** Worse is the Hidden Town of Kasuto. The hammer that lets you break rocks also lets you 'knock down' tiles of ''forest'' in the overworld. Beneath one of these tiles - one! - is a town tile. There is ''nothing anywhere'' to hint that the hammer does this, or that you'll ever need to do it, or that one of these tiles could hide something, especially since you discover other places hidden in the woods just by walking into them. In Old Kasuto, you are told "THE TOWN IS DEAD LOOK EAST IN WOODS." That is ''all'' you are getting.
* ''[[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaLinksAwakening Link's Awakening]]'' has doors that will only open if you throw a pot at them. Aside from not being very intuitive in the first place, this logic doesn't work in any other game in the series, so veteran players are even less likely to think of it and just assume they missed a switch or something. At least the DX version added hints to help.

** At one point in Turtle Rock, you have to shoot a statue with an arrow - which you never have to do at any other point in the game.
** A puzzle in the second dungeon requires you to kill three enemies in a specific order to reveal a key required to progress. There is a hint earlier in the level which refers to the enemies by name, but the enemies' names are nowhere in the game or the manual. The only way you'd know them is from the manual of a previous Zelda game on a console you might not even own.
* In ''[[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaOcarinaOfTime Ocarina of Time]],'' there are 100 Gold Skulltullas for you to find. The manual mentions that Skulltullas can sometimes be found in trees, and dislodged by rolling into said tree. If you hadn't read that, you're unlikely to try it, as the trees are small and barren and clearly could not be hiding a Skulltulla. Let's not get into the Skulltullas that only appear at a certain time of day, or only exist in one time period...
** The father of the cursed family will mention Skulltulas that only appear at night or inside soil patches, but he will no longer give this hint once all of his children are freed, so if you never talk to him between getting your tenth and fiftieth token, you're on your own.
** Outside of the Gold Skulltula quest, a lot of puzzles in this game can feel confusing without a guide, possibly making this one of the most Guide Dang-iest games in the series:
*** Figuring out that you need Saria's Song to access the second dungeon
*** Knowing you have to go outside to Lake Hylia to find a bottle.
*** If you end up missing a key in the Forest or Water Temples.
*** Using the blue flame that you recieve to melt the red rocks.
*** Shooting an arrow through a flame to melt ice can be confusing the first time through since the game never tells you that you can do this.
*** Knowing that you defeat the Poe Sisters by shooting an arrow at their paintings.
*** Probably the biggest offender; the sidequest where you learn the Song of Storms, go back in time, and play it inside the windmill which somehow manages to allow you to enter the well.
** In the Master Quest version, you have to bomb something you've never bombed before, that matches the rest of the scenery in the room (and entire dungeon), and has no indication that it can be destroyed, in order to progress through The Well and acquire the Lens of Truth. And not even the ''compass'' tells you that the room contains anything.
* ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaMajorasMask'' is more or less ''GuideDangIt: The Game''. Certain masks are obtained by going to a completely random spot at an arbitrarily specific time, or by using an item or mask in a completely irrelevant location. And then there's the Thieves' Hideout. Go and find six bottles, no clues whatsoever!
** The 3DS version is largely an aversion of this trope, however, as there is a Sheikah Stone near the Mask Salesman which you can interact without any special means. It contains little videos telling how to beat every event of the main quest, plus pictures of every Heart Piece and Stray Fairy in the whole game. The Bombers will also tell you about most side-quests in the game, and they're added to your Notebook as "Rumored events".
* ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaOracleGames'' have 64 Rings for you to collect, and gives you a list of 64 to fill. And the game does not tell you how to find any of them. It does not tell you that Rings have 5 different classes, and events that give you random rings only give you rings from certain specific classes. For example, some events only give you rings from class 1-3, and others only give you rings from class 3-5. But you would never know that because the game doesn't tell you anything about ring classes.
** The Advance Time Ring and the Advance Nature Ring can only be found if you play the games on Game Boy Advance. Otherwise, the shop that they are sold in is simply a closed door that you can't get into. And again, the game never tells you that you have to play both games on an entirely different system to get those rings. And if you bought the game from the Nintendo eShop? Tough luck, you're never getting in.
** The Red Ring in ''Oracle of Seasons'' is probably one of the biggest offenders. It requires you to slay 4 different "Golden" monsters in 4 completely different locations in the game. And those monsters only show up in a specific season in that location. And the game gives you absolutely no hints as to where the monsters are or what season they are found in. And, of course, those "Golden" monsters don't even show up until you've first talked to an NPC that definitely won't be found if you're just running through the main quest. The entrance to finding the NPC is also only found in a specific season. And again, the game gives you no hints to finding him.
** The ''Oracle'' games also require you to guess that jars are ''pushable'', which they weren't in any previous Zelda game. This returns in ''The Minish Cap'', so whichever one you play first will probably give you trouble, but at least you'll know what to do in the other.
** An even more subtle point in ''Oracle of Ages'' involves the seeds that grow into vines. They generally act like bottles: you can pick them up but can't put them down safely, so to move them to a particular place, you have to push them (and they also break if you land on them from a high ledge). But there's one key difference: the Switch Hook breaks bottles but leaves seeds intact. You won't get into the sixth dungeon without figuring this out.

** Also in ''Oracle of Seasons'', at one point, Onox holds Din as a HumanShield, and what you are ''supposed'' to do is bat her away with the rod of seasons. There are two problems with this:
*** '''1)''' Nothing tells you to even ''consider'' this - the only way for the player to have figured out that the Rod of Seasons could be used to knock enemies away is if they had experimented with it previously and discovered that small enemies can be pushed with it.
*** '''2)''' You are never required to have used the Rod of Seasons like this before.
** In a linked ''{{VideoGame/The Legend of Zelda Oracle|Games}} of Ages'' game is the Hero's Cave. In one room, there's a puzzle to turn blue floor tiles into red ones like in some other dungeons in the game. You can spend hours of trying to solve the puzzle with at least one tile being left. The solution? Using your Cane of Somaria to create a block on the tile counts as turning it red.
* ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaTheWindWaker [[UpdatedRerelease HD]]'' has the Tingle Statues sidequest. You're required to bomb a specific point in each of the major five dungeons to cause a treasure chest to appear. There is no indication that bombing causes chests to appear (and no other chests in the game require this), there is no indication of what points you need to bomb (the Compass doesn't even indicate that these chests exist), and there is no hint ingame that this quest even ''exists''. Your reward for clearing it is causing Knuckle to appear on Tingle Island - and he's necessary for the Nintendo Gallery in this version, despite not being necessary in the original - the only version that gives any hints toward this sidequest, and only if you actually used the Tingle Tuner. It seems like the ''real'' purpose of the quest in the HD version is to reward people who played the original and remember the spots.
** One Piece of Heart is found by destroying a very specific Cannon Boat that appears in one specific section of the Great Sea. Said Cannon Boat is completely unmarked and indistinguishable from every other Cannon Boat in the game. Though in some fairness, enough treasure hunting could yield the chart that shows where all of the Pieces of Heart in the game are.
** At one point, the game also requires you to play tag with a bunch of kids (yes, ''requires''; it's the first step of many in a side quest that will lead to something vital to finishing the game), one of whom is on top of a tree. You have to roll into it and knock him down -- but if you have the Deku Leaf, it's natural to try flying over to him. You can get right up in his face, which ought to count as tagging him out, but the game ignores it. Worse, this is just tricky enough to make you waste a lot of time trying it before you realize you're not doing it wrong, it just won't work.
* In ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaTheMinishCap'' you have to scoop up water with a bottle and pour it on a seed... except the game gave no indication that you could scoop up water with a bottle or that pouring water on the seed would immediately make it grow.
** Immediately after that you have to get to the green water spring...by blowing up part of the wall which does not look bombable or different from any other part of the wall in the slightest.
** Later in the game you have to use water in a bottle to put out fireplaces in Hyrule Town so you can go through them when minish sized. Your only hint are the Minish passageways that can be seen going into the chimneys.
** Some of the Kinstone fusions can be this, since some switch to other people the course of the game, and some people will only fuse based on random chance. Others are shared by two different [=NPCs=] and there is no indication of who they are or when the fusion switches between them, some people have two different fusions (one of which is often a shared one) and some require backtracking to areas that you have no story reason to go to. Reaching a certain point in the game without doing a specific fusion makes the Light Arrows [[PermanentlyMissableContent unobtainable]], a rare situation in Zelda games (especially for one of Link's most iconic items), and if you don't do this there aren't any obvious clues that you missed anything.
** The first and final phases of [[FinalBoss Vaati]] are this. For the first one, you need to use the Gust Jar to suck up his projectiles so you can attack, and for the last one you need the Cane of Pacci to flip his arms over and then enter them. There are no indications for either of those two.
* The Zelda Spin-off, ''VideoGame/FreshlyPickedTinglesRosyRupeeland'', has the character paying money to people. If you don't offer them enough, they'll tell you to get lost. Offer them too much and you'll have wasted a bunch of money. It's even worse when you're selling items because trying to charge too much may make you lose the opportunity to sell that item at all!
* In ''VIdeoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaPhantomHourglass'', the secret to getting that mark in the Temple of the Ocean King onto your sea chart definitely qualifies, but it can become FridgeBrilliance if you manage to work it out or a SugarWiki/{{Funny Moment|s}} if you accidentally stumble on it. You have to close the DS to transfer the stamp from one screen to the next. Of course, people playing on a later model that can't be closed might have a hard time connecting those maps to the switch for entering sleep mode …
* ''[[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaSpiritTracks Spirit Tracks]]'':
** Beedle's Air Shop is a store run out of a hot-air balloon, and is the only place to carry the Bomb Bag, which as in previous Zelda games is the only way to carry bombs. Of course, you'll need to get him to land first. He tells you how by ''mailing you a letter,'' which you will not receive for some time. Until then, have fun chasing him around like an idiot!
** Getting all the stamps is a pain. The Sand Sanctuary one, for example, requires you to go ''back'' after you complete the Sand Temple just so Rael would tell you he needs cuccos delivered to him. You need to use those cuccos to reach the tiny island where the stamp station is.

** One of the final {{sidequest}}s is this for players who want to get everything optional done before continuing with the main quest. You are asked to bring some Dark Ore, but there is no clue as to where you can get it, not even from all those gorons. You have to do another, seemingly unrelated sidequest first in order to discover it, but that one won't trigger until later. A tiny bit later, all you have to do is return to the top of the Tower of Spirits and leave again without having to enter the actual dungeon, but it's still irritating as sidequests in this game can usually be done immediately, and somebody playing it for the first time has no way to tell whether the aforementioned dungeon is already the end of the game.
** Near the end of the spirit tower pseudo-dungeon, there's a bizarre and non-optional stumbling block. A sign hidden in a dark area, which you can only read while Zelda is inhabiting a flame-sworded phantom, gives you a cryptic clue: "only those with no special powers know the secret." Controlling one of the regular phantoms in the room won't help. The solution is to make Zelda ''talk to'' one of them, making them spill the beans about a weak spot in the wall (i.e. something you can bomb open). All other phantoms say nothing of substance, and it was already established that Zelda only talks to phantoms to distract them while Link sneaks by. It's probably easier to talk to one by accident while stumbling around in the dark than to actually solve the puzzle. As for the weak spot itself? The phantom's line implies that you have to place the bomb in the corner, but it has to be some pixels away from that in order to hit the passage.
* ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaBreathOfTheWild''
** The game is overall good at explaining its mechanics, but nothing in the game helps a new player figure out how to cook. The only interaction found at a cooking pot with a fire lit beneath it is 'Sit', which is the same as with regular firepits. In order to cook, the player needs to head into the inventory and have Link 'hold' any ingredient for cooking, with a maximum of 5 ingredients to hold at a time, and then dump those into the pot.
** There are lanterns you can light with blue flame in more than one place. Players of previous Zelda games would figure that you could get a prize by lighting all the lanterns. A common search is 'where is the last lantern?' as people have run all around town trying to find it and get the reward. The twist is- there is no prize. You get absolutely nothing for lighting them all, and many only find this out from looking it up.
** Finding all the Koroks. There are multiple different methods needed to find them (though once you find one of them it is safe to assume the same thing will work for others). Except the things you need to do include lifting up random rocks, jumping into random circles of lilypads and jumping into clumps of leaves. There are also 900 of these things, but you only need about half of them to fully max out your inventory...even then, good luck finding them all even if you do know all the ways to find them.
** The simple fact that the eastern half Hyrule to explore is easier than the western half. Granted, the player is told to [[{{Railroading}} head to Kakariko Village in the east]], but as the game prides itself on being an open world to explore, there is nothing stopping a player from heading into the completely different direction. It isn't until one has to deal with a lot of Guardians, harsher weather conditions than the east, and finding more difficult enemies, including [[BossInMookClothing Lynels]], that one thinks that maybe sticking to the east might have been a better idea for the beginning.
** Ingame hints encourage you to look for wild horses that have lots of Stamina--the spur icons that appear while running. This is also the only horse-stat you can easily determine without taking it to a stable. The catch is, high Stamina isn't actually very useful, since it replenishes at the same rate whether the horse has 2 spurs or 5; it's only good for sprinting away from enemies. Speed is the one you want maxed out, because this makes both unlimited-running and galloping as fast as possible. The game never mentions that horses with high Stamina ''cannot'' have max Speed, so if you follow the game's advice, you'll be stuck with deceptively slow horses. The ideal 5-Speed horses can only be found in certain locations, and have only 3 Stamina; it's hard to find them without knowing this, since it's tricky to determine the Speed stat without walking them to a stable, and the best horse-hunting spots are, of course, not close to any stables.

* ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaTheWindWaker [[UpdatedRerelease HD]]'' has the Tingle Statues sidequest. You're required to bomb a specific point in each of the major five dungeons to cause a treasure chest to appear. There is no indication that bombing causes chests to appear (and no other chests in the game require this), there is no indication of what points you need to bomb (the Compass doesn't even indicate that these chests exist), and there is no hint ingame that this quest even ''exists''. Your reward for clearing it is causing Knuckle to appear on Tingle Island - and he's necessary for the Nintendo Gallery in this version, despite not being necessary in the original - the only version that gives any hints toward this sidequest, and only if you actually used the Tingle Tuner.