Ocarina Of Time Zelda Notes Officially Reveal Number One Cause Of Death

Zelda Notes Reveal Ocarina Of Time's Hardest Boss And Enemy Published Nov 15, 2026, 6:23 AM EST James Lucas is the Lead Photo Editor at TheGamer and has worked in professional journalism since 2018. A Newcastle University graduate with a degree in Journalism, Media, and Culture, they have written hundreds of guides, news stories, and original reports, with bylines in IGN, NME, GaymingMag, and VG247, sourcing interviews with studio heads, legendary industry figures, prominent actors, and more. You can reach them at James.t@thegamer.com In 1998, if you wanted to know how everyone else was faring in Ocarina of Time, you'd have to ask your friends in the playground between rumors of a hidden Sky Temple. Or maybe you'd scour some old-school message boards like N64.com and AOL, long before the days of Reddit and centralized social media. It's a little different for today's kids. Now, there's a dedicated Zelda Notes section on the Nintendo Switch app that keeps track of all the stats, so you only need to swipe on your smartphone to find out who is dying to what. It's got a little less of that tactile hubbub of the playground rumor mill, but there are some interesting details to come out of it. As reported by GoNintendo, the Zelda Notes not only provide personalized playtime data, but global data. If you die to an enemy, you get lumped into a statistic that everyone can gawk at. Funnily enough, not much has changed since the day of ASCII-art GamesFaq guides, when authors would urge that you "run through the green muck" because it "hurts less than if you go near a ReDead." Even now, in the remake, they're the leading cause of death in Hyrule. 28 years haven't taught us a thing: ReDeads and Gibdos remain the undisputed #1 cause of death. Skulltullas are getting farmed: players are clearing them out more than any other enemy in the game. Dark Link is still a menace: he’s taking the crown as the toughest miniboss, racking up more game overs than anyone else. Traps lead the damage charts: traps trail only ReDeads when it comes to total punishment. Deku Seeds fill the pouch: they stand as the most common consumable, with standard arrows and bombs lagging behind. The Hookshot is the go-to: it's easily the most popular special item, edging out the Slingshot, Boomerang, and Bow. Lens of Truth takes the crown: players are leaning heavily on this magic, followed closely by Din's Fire. Most are playing it safe: the majority of players are sitting comfortably in the 1–10 total death range. Guiders Were Struggling With Dark Link 23 Years Ago It'd be interesting if there were statistics from the '90s that we could compare this to. I'd imagine that ReDeads and Gibdos would still be the #1 cause of death — though it'd be fascinating to know if people died as little as they have in the remake. Was the original game really harder, or were we just kids who didn't know any better? We don't have an app that handily compiles stats like this from 1998, but there are some old internet forums that do shed light on what Ocarina of Time players thought at the time. On the Ushi No Tane forum, one player wrote that they "hate" ReDeads specifically because "they hump your face." Others in the comments said it was "the scream" that did it, or simply that they "freak me out." In 2006, someone posted to the Neoseeker forums asking, "What's your most annoying enemy?" The comments called out the Tektites, Wallmasters, and yes, the ReDeads. And in 2003, IGN described Dark Link as "the most annoying mini-boss in the history of Zelda," so if you're dying to him in the remake, just know that a stressed-out guide writer was suffering through the same fight you were over 20 years ago. Systems Released November 5, 2026 ESRB Everyone 10+ / Animated Blood, Fantasy Violence Developer(s) Nintendo Publisher(s) Nintendo Genre(s) RPG, Action, Adventure