Ocarina of Time Goron City: The Vase, Shop and Bomb Bag

Goron City has one Piece of Heart, and whether you get it is decided by which way a clay vase happens to be facing when your bomb goes off. The decompiled N64 code splits the vase's full circle into three nearly equal arcs: bombs, three green Rupees, or the heart. The same cavern also hands you a Bomb Bag upgrade, a free Goron Tunic and two Gold Skulltulas, and it runs a shop that will not sell child Link a single bomb until Dodongo's Cavern is done. This guide covers all of it, with the numbers from the code where the walkthroughs stay vague.

Goron City at a glance

The randomizer's location list and the walkthroughs agree on what is here. Rupee drops, pots and crates are left out.

The ages and item requirements come from the randomizer's logic file. Locations come from Zelda Wiki, StrategyWiki and Thonky. Zelda Wiki describes the city as four floors with the entrance on the top one, the Goron Shop and Darunia's room on the lowest, and the vase on the bottom floor too.

Getting in and opening Darunia's room

You reach Goron City up Death Mountain Trail, and a child gets onto the trail by showing Zelda's Letter to the gatekeeper in Kakariko, which is covered in our Hyrule Castle guide. The trail's own ledge Piece of Heart and Dodongo's Cavern entrance are outside the city and sit with the rest of the mountain in the heart pieces guide.

Darunia has locked himself in his room on the lowest floor. Thonky and StrategyWiki agree on the order: stand on the Royal Family's mat and play Zelda's Lullaby to open the door, then play Saria's Song to Darunia himself to cheer him up. He gives you the Goron's Bracelet and asks you to deal with Dodongo's Cavern. Our Dodongo's Cavern walkthrough covers why it takes both songs, and the songs guide has the notes.

The room also has a torch. That matters in the next section.

The giant vase: a Piece of Heart on a timer

The vase on the bottom floor is shut and still until you light the city's torches. Thonky's instructions are to light a Deku Stick on one of the torches in Darunia's room, walk out, and light the four torches on the bottom floor. StrategyWiki says the same and adds that the fire also lights the Bomb Flowers on that floor. Once the last torch burns the vase starts to spin, and Zelda Wiki says it is the lit torches that start it.

Go up one floor and throw a Bomb Flower into the open mouth. StrategyWiki says you can also wait until Dodongo's Cavern gives you bombs and use those. The spin that follows ends on one of three faces, and the face decides the prize. StrategyWiki says it depends on when you threw. Thonky says to throw when the happiest face is toward you, and the happy face pays the Piece of Heart.

The decompiled code explains why. When the vase comes to rest it reads its own rotation and sorts it into one of three arcs of the circle:

So each outcome is a third of the circle. The spin after a hit runs on fixed timers, so our reading is that the angle the vase is facing when the explosion goes off decides where it ends. Treat that as a timing puzzle you can learn, not a lottery. That reading is ours, but it fits both guides telling you to watch the faces.

Two details from the code are worth knowing before you start:

• An explosion only counts over the vase's mouth. A bomb that goes off beside the vase does nothing. This is why you throw from the second floor looking down.
• The heart pays once. After you have taken it, the same arc pays a Purple Rupee instead, along with the Red and Blue. A miss costs a Bomb Flower or a Bomb, and the Bomb and green Rupee arcs pay a little of that back.

The randomizer's logic only counts the vase for child Link, and it lists the Piece of Heart as the city's single heart. That matches the "1" for Goron City in our heart pieces table.

The rolling Goron as a child: a bigger Bomb Bag

Zelda Wiki calls him the Hot Rodder Goron. A big Goron rolls lap after lap around the second floor, and a sign beside the alcove says that if you can stop his wild rolling you might get something great. Zelda Wiki says the bomb has to hit him at the alcove by the sign, and that a bomb going off anywhere else only makes him stop and chat. The code likewise only pays out while he is on one stretch of his route.

What he pays is the next Bomb Bag size up. The code gives the 30-Bomb bag if you carry the 20 and the 40-Bomb bag if you already have 30. It only offers it once you own a Bomb Bag at all, and that comes from Dodongo's Cavern, so this is a trip you make after the first dungeon. Zelda Wiki lists the other upgrade as a prize in the Bombchu Bowling Alley, and says the two come in either order. Our Castle Town Market guide covers that half.

The Goron Shop

The Goron Shop is on the bottom floor. As a child you open its door by lighting the Bomb Flowers there with your Deku Stick fire (StrategyWiki). The shelves hold eight items, and the prices below match both the decompiled shop table and StrategyWiki's list:

Two rules from the shop's code are easy to trip over:

• Bombs wait for the Goron's Ruby. The bomb shelves refuse to sell unless you hold the Ruby, and they also refuse when your bag is already full. You get the Bomb Bag partway through Dodongo's Cavern and the Ruby from Darunia after King Dodongo falls, so for that stretch this shop will not sell you a bomb. Our Market guide found the same rule in the Bazaar.
• The tunic is adult-only. The code turns child Link away, and it also refuses if you already own one. Zelda Wiki notes that this makes the shop the only place to replace a tunic a Like Like has eaten. Our Fire Temple guide explains how to avoid that.

Seven years later: Link the Goron and the free tunic

When you return as an adult, the city is empty apart from one small Goron rolling around it. Zelda Wiki says the shop is closed off again and only reopens once you stop and talk to him. He is Darunia's son, and he is named Link after you.

You stop him the same way as his older counterpart: put a well-timed explosion in his path. Thonky's easy method is to stand on the fence opposite the Bomb Flowers and shoot one as he approaches. The randomizer's logic accepts explosives, the Fairy Bow or Goron's Bracelet. Then talk to him, ask about the dragon and then about the Gorons, and he gives you the Goron Tunic for free. Zelda Wiki lists his other help: the weak point of Volvagia, which is the Megaton Hammer, and the secret route to the Fire Temple.

That route is in Darunia's room. Link the Goron tells you to try moving the statue, and Thonky's walkthrough has you pull it out of the wall as an adult. Behind it is the passage into Death Mountain Crater, and with the tunic on you can walk it. The Fire Temple itself is in our walkthrough.

The boulder maze and the two Gold Skulltulas

Behind a set of boulders is a maze with three chests. The randomizer's location list gives them as a 200-Rupee chest and two 50-Rupee chests. Its logic wants the Megaton Hammer or Silver Gauntlets for the 200, and explosives, the Hammer or the Gauntlets for the other two. An adult can reach the 200-Rupee chest once he has the Hammer, so it is a return trip.

The child Gold Skulltula is in the same maze, in a crate in the far right corner (Thonky). The randomizer's logic only asks for explosives. Thonky's list gives it as a child Skulltula that shows up day or night, so there is no need to wait for dark.

The adult Gold Skulltula is on the back of the hanging platform on the top floor, which you reach by walking the ropes (Thonky). Hookshot the token from there. Both count toward the House of Skulltula rewards in the Gold Skulltulas guide.

The Lost Woods tunnel and Medigoron

A Goron on the second floor says he enjoys the music coming from a passage nearby. It is blocked by boulders with Bomb Flowers growing around them. StrategyWiki lights one with a Deku Stick to clear it, and the tunnel leads into the Lost Woods, which our Lost Woods guide covers from the other end.

Medigoron's blade store is also behind rocks, and it is an adult stop. Zelda Wiki says he sells the Giant's Knife for 200 Rupees. He is Biggoron's brother, and the quest that ends at Biggoron's Sword is in our Biggoron's Sword guide.

Quick Action Checklist

• Show Zelda's Letter to the Kakariko gatekeeper, then climb the trail to Goron City.
• Play Zelda's Lullaby on the mat outside Darunia's room, then Saria's Song to Darunia for the Goron's Bracelet.
• Light a Deku Stick on a torch in his room and light the four torches on the bottom floor to start the vase.
• Throw a Bomb Flower (or a bomb later) into the vase from the second floor when the happy face points your way. The arc for the heart is a third of the circle.
• After Dodongo's Cavern, blow up the rolling Goron at the alcove by the sign for a bigger Bomb Bag.
• Do not expect to buy bombs here until you have the Goron's Ruby.
• As an adult, stop Link the Goron with an explosion and take the free Goron Tunic. A replacement costs 200 Rupees.
• Move the statue in Darunia's room for the way into the Crater.
• Bomb the boulders for the maze chests and the child Gold Skulltula, and Hookshot the hanging platform for the adult one.