That's right, I'm back on my randomizer bullshit. That chalupa-chomping fart connoisseur Dan Ryckert decided to start a fresh The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time playthrough on his Twitch channel and it's inspired me to investigate if the randomizer tools for Ocarina are as ingenious and rewarding as those available for A Link to the Past. The one downside I foresaw here was that Ocarina of Time is a much larger game than LTTP: maybe not strictly in terms of how much there is to see and do (there's fewer dungeons, if I recall) but definitely in terms of geography. It's part of the reason it wowed so many at the time: just strolling across the enormous Hyrule Field after the Kokiri Forest prologue made it seem like there was a huge world to explore. That Breath of the Wild pulled off the same feat again almost two decades later is partly why it's rocketed up so many "favorite Zelda" lists.

There's a few other odds and ends specific to Ocarina of Time, or at least factors that distinguish it from A Link to the Past, which makes a randomizer run that much more awkward (and maybe compelling?) as a result. My expertise with the game, which really just boils down to "I completed it two or three times years and years ago," does not extend to typical speedrun strats: glitch exploits, sequence breaks, and the memorization of every chest location are all way beyond my limited familiarity with the game. Thus, I don't expect I'll get to the end in any kind of competitive time; however, I still do intend to get to the end, even if it takes the most circuitous route to get there. It remains to be seen how much of that process I intend to immortalize here as an LP though: I want to show off some of the randomizer's quirks (and how they pertain to the game's already extant quirks) as well as some of the bad decisions I've made w/r/t the toggles you can switch when generating a randomizer seed. Speaking of which...

The Randomizer

I found this site quickly, which suggests there's a pretty big community around this already. If you're unfamiliar with randomizers in general, most of them are specifically "item randomizers": they fill a pool of key and inessential items, usually the contents of chests or prizes won from bosses and mini-games, and then redistributes them. This works especially well for Zelda games and explormers, because they're both heavily dependent on specific items and upgrades to make progress. If you don't have the right item, progression is temporarily stymied... unless you picked up an item you weren't supposed to have yet, at which point you can either use this unexpected boon to jury-rig alternatives to the traditional solution or jump ahead in the game's critical path. (I created a much longer series on ALTTP's Randomizer here, and then tried a bunch of other randomizers two E3s ago, if you need more of an explanation of how randomizers can affect a playthrough in many unforeseen ways.)

Anyway, getting to the Ocarina of Time randomizer specifically: there's a few really boneheaded decisions you can make here that I want to show off once the LP gets started below, but in general it's super robust with the sheer volume of features on offer. It even has a multiplayer "cross-world" co-op mode, which randomizes your world's items with those of everyone else joining you. That might mean that your game's hookshot is in your friend's world, and you have to wait for them to find it before you can use it. I'm not sure I have anyone in my life I'd be able to convince to try that, since randomizers are already niche enough, but I'd love to see it show up on Giant Bomb or a GDQ someday (needless to say, there's a Link to the Past version also).

(EDIT: I guess I wished upon the right shooting star or something, because there will actually be an OoT Randomizer Co-op run at SGDQ 2020 this August. I swear I only heard about it this morning.)

Some of my favorite toggles in the standard single-player randomizer include skipping less fun (and randomizer irrelevant) sequences like sneaking through Zelda's Castle as Young Link, both of the races (Epona and ghost Dampé), and the climactic crumbling Ganon's tower escape. These toggles mostly serve to save time on speedruns, but they weren't my favorite parts of OoT so I'm happy to lose them. You can let the Sheikah Gossip Stones tell you where items are if you're stuck, though if you don't want to make it too easy you can set it so that you need the right item first. You can make the game even harder with enemy damage boosts or fewer starting hearts. You can randomize the note order in every song, making them amusing cacophonies that are almost impossible to remember. You could even add Triforce pieces into the item pool and instead turn the game into a big randomized collectathon: by finding them all you win the game (the randomizer suggests this for the cross-worlds co-op mode, since there's more item pool slots to go around). There's more I want to introduce in my LP though, so I'll cut the explanation off here.

Suffice it to say, one of the most popular titles in video game history has a suitably complex and intelligent randomizer program to suit. I always enjoy any excuse to warp my own nostalgia like this, even with all the headaches that are about to ensue. And oh boy are they.

The Playthrough

Episode I: The Deku of Many Things

OoT NOoTe #1: Yes, you can choose to randomize the Kokiri Sword along with everything else. However, there's also a toggle to eliminate that little jerk Mido, who blocks the entrance to the Great Deku Tree until you have a sword and shield in the vanilla game. I toggled the former without toggling the latter, which meant the sword had to be obtainable before I could leave Kokiri Village and continue the prologue: hence, it's back in its usual chest as there's nowhere else it could really spawn. If I were a little more adventurous, I could've also randomized shop inventories; in that case, I'd probably have to buy both the sword and the shield before the game let me continue. (If you're unlucky enough not to find the sword early in a seed that has randomized its location, you have to make do with Deku Sticks for general combat instead. You burn through those things fast, often literally.)

OoT NOoTe #2: OK, so another one of the randomizer's options is to blend in dungeons from Ocarina of Time: Master Quest. Master Quest was an extra mode offered by the GameCube port of Ocarina of Time, which was given away as a pre-order bonus for The Wind Waker. It shuffled the dungeon layouts to make them more challenging, but didn't really use any new content besides a handful of assets dummied out of the original Ocarina of Time; thus, it didn't take much for sharp modders to recreate those changes in the game's original ROM for the sake of this randomizer. When generating a seed you can decide how many Master Quest dungeons are thrown into the mix - between zero or all of them - or set a random value.

OoT NOoTe #3: One major difference between Ocarina of Time and Link to the Past are the gold skulltulas: one hundred sneaky spiders with pre-determined locations across both Hyrule and future Hyrule. They appear in overworld locations (though usually only at night) as well as dungeons, and each of them produces a gold skulltula token upon death. The idea being that you collect enough of these tokens to uncurse a rich family in Kakariko Village, who give you things like wallet upgrades after certain token milestones. Now, in randomizer terms this means a hundred new items could potentially infect the item pool; I believe you can choose to keep the skulltula tokens out as a default setting, but this idiot over here - as an inveterate invertebrate hunter - chose to keep them in.

The repercussions of this decision have proven to be dire. Not only do most chests and rewards now provide near-useless tokens (there's always a chance a gold skulltula family gift turns out to be something vital, like the bow, so I gotta keep getting them) but there's a chance that any gold skulltula in the game might drop something important instead of a token. In fact, several will in the upcoming screenshots.

OoT NOoTe #4: Ever heard of a Keysanity run? I did one for Link to the Past here. In short, it assigns every dungeon's map, compass, boss key, and small keys to the global item pool. That results in cases like the above, where I find a dungeon item for a dungeon I've yet to access (the Forest Temple is an adult Link dungeon). The compass and map aren't such a big deal - dungeons can be cleared without them - but shuffling the keys is a much bigger obstacle to progress. You cannot complete a dungeon without its Boss Key, and you can't expect to get too far without enough keys either. It's for this reason Keysanity runners usually do all they can on the overworld first, since otherwise they'll be dipping in and out of dungeons depending on the limited number of keys they've found. (Fortunately, the three major Young Link dungeons don't require keys.)

Just to reiterate: Keysanity (a portmanteau of "key" and "insanity") runs are an extremely bad idea for neophyte randomizer players. I've no clue why I chose to do this to myself again. Especially when combined with the skulltula thing.

Episode II: Hyrule More Like Whyrule

OoT NOoTe #5: I feel the need here just a moment to reiterate the early game's progression, for the sake of those who haven't played Ocarina of Time or simply no longer remember the specifics. After completing the Great Deku Tree dungeon and leaving Kokiri for the first time, your goal is to meet Princess Zelda and obtain two things from her and her attendant Impa: an invitation to get you past the guard in Kakariko Village who blocks the way to Death Mountain and the next dungeon, and the Zelda's Lullaby song which is needed for a bunch of different triggers, including the entrance to Zora's Domain. After that, you can visit Death Mountain and Zora's Domain unimpeded for the next two dungeons. Just need to wake up Talon to get into the castle in the first place...

OoT NOoTe #6: Yes, you can randomize how many cuccos you need to save. I could've sworn I set the number to random, but I still needed all seven. Worth the time and effort, as you can see above. For the record, there's a bunch of Deku Shields in chests (and thus the item pool) because they're easy to lose if you're dumb enough to block fireballs with them.

OoT NOoTe #7: There were at least a few ice traps in the original Ocarina of Time, which were chests that simply froze you in place and drained a bit of your health. The randomizer can insert even more of them into the item pool, leading to unfortunate gotcha moments like this. Irritatingly, ice traps can be found anywhere, not just chests: you can grab an item in the wild and it'll suddenly reveal itself to be another ice trap. The game managed to trick me with the promise of a bottle, even (since I didn't get one from the Cucco Lady, and nor will I from Talon and Princess Ruto for future reference).

Now that I have access to Zora's Domain and Dodongo's Cavern, the game's opened up just a little bit. I can also go visit Lake Hylia and the entrance to Gerudo Valley, or go commune with the Great Fairies of Hyrule Castle and Death Mountain. Nothing guaranteed, but enough possible item spawns to get me a little further on.

I might resume this playthrough later if anyone's interested, but I think you get the gist of the sort of mental gymnastics a randomizer run regularly cajoles out of the ol' gray matter; doubly so when you're stupid enough to include rules like "mix in all the Gold Skulltula tokens" or "randomize all the dungeon items too." There's so much punishment you can put yourself through, but it's been a super rewarding exercise thus far regardless.

Use the link (not that one) at the very top of the blog if you want to try generating a seed yourself, perhaps with some gentler variables, and I'll see you again should I ever stop picking up rocks hoping to find a boss key underneath.

Ocarina of Time is definitely one of those games I know well enough that I think I could plausibly complete a randomizer run or two, even if I’m far less familiar with the Master Quest versions of various dungeons. That said, I definitely wouldn’t subject myself to nightmare key runs or gold skulltilla life choices, but so far so good, right? It’s only going to be when you’re at the adult portion of the game and need those boss keys that things will really start going badly.

Some updates (I'm losing the screenshots - y'all know what Ocarina of Time looks like):

• Great Fairies were a bust. Didn't get anything of note from either of them.
• Gerudo's Valley had the Silver Scale (boosts dive time) in a crate halfway down the canyon. This would let me skip ahead into Zora's Domain if I didn't have the Lullaby. Zora's Domain, meanwhile, has nothing (the diving mini-game gave me another Skulltula token).
• Lake Hylia did NOT have Ruto's Letter, not only depriving me of a bottle but blocking the Lord Jabu Jabu dungeon until I find it. At least I got the Goron's Tunic from the fishing mini-game. Useful for later.
• Revisiting Saria for Saria's Song after meeting Zelda instead unlocked the Nocturne of Shadow song (warps to Shadow Temple, which is closed off until I get the Din's Fire spell).
• Lon Lon Ranch provided Sun's Song instead of Epona's Song. Makes it more convenient to hunt for Gold Skulltulas at least.
• The Dodongo's Cavern dungeon was completable even without the Goron Bracelet, but there was nothing in any of its chests besides a Deku Stick upgrade (yaaaay). Earned the Forest Temple Emblem afterwards.
• Turns out the Song of Time just opens the way to the Master Sword instantly, you don't need the Ocarina of Time or the Stones. You need the Stones to get the Ocarina and the Ocarina to get the song, so the game simply assumes you have everything when you try playing it outside the Temple of Time doors.
• Instead of learning the Prelude of Light (Temple of Time warp) from Sheik, I get Epona's Song. I found the Prelude a little bit later at the Kakariko windmill.
• Adult Link already has Biggoron's Sword and the Goron Tunic, but still only four hearts.
• Ghost Dampé had nothing for me (a Skulltula token). Neither did the new archery mini-game in Kakariko.
• Second Gold Skulltula Kid gave me a recovery heart (wow, thanks) but the third gave me the Stone of Agony. Might be helpful, since I'm not going to remember all this game's secrets.
• I did get the Fairy Bow from Goron Village and the Megaton Hammer from the Cucco Lady (she normally gives you a Pocket Cucco Egg), so I'm good for Forest/Fire Temple gear at least.

Current Situation: Most of the dungeons are still closed off. Here's the rundown:

1. Lord Jabu Jabu can't be reached without getting King Zora out of the way, and he needs Ruto's Letter for that.
2. Forest Temple needs Saria's Song to get past Mido.
3. Fire Temple I think needs the hookshot? I forget how to get further in the Crater/Caldera area (I have a Goron Tunic, so the heat isn't a problem).
4. Water Temple needs the Iron Boots to reach. A Zora Tunic wouldn't hurt either.
5. Shadow Temple needs the Din's Fire spell to open the door.
6. For that matter, the Bottom of the Well dungeon as Young Link needs the Song of Storms to open up.
7. The mini Ice Dungeon where Jabu Jabu was is inaccessible, since King Zora's frozen in the same place.

Only other dungeon is the Spirit Temple, and that's a pain to reach. Also, the only Boss Key I've been able to find so far is for the Fire Temple.

No hookshot also means fewer Gold Skulltulas in reach. I don't have a mana gauge yet, so I can't use the Lens of Truth (I was going to use it to cheat at the chest guessing mini-game in Castle Town) or the Fire Arrows to hit some triggers. Can't get the bracelet (or whatever is assigned to its slot) from Darunia without Saria's Song, which of course is also preventing me from accessing the Forest Temple.

And I still don't have any bottles, and just the one extra heart container.

However, I can access more of the overworld as Big Boy Link, and Epona's unlocked, so I'm going to check Lake Hylia and the whole Gerudo Valley area. I don't have enough keys for both the Gerudo Fortress and the Training Grounds, but I might get a few extra items. (I'm seriously this close to digging up a guide to tell me where all the secret caves and Gold Skulltulas are...)

Yeah, I was gonna say, the biggest weakness in OoT’s game design is how many meaningless secret caves exist under random boulders, or completely hidden to anything but the Stone of Agony. “Meaningless” because in a standard game, they contain a chest with something dumb like rupees or Deku nuts. Like no one in their right mind would remember where any of them are because they’re of no unique value to the player.

But in your randomizer, any of those forgettable caves could have the hook shot or something in it.

Ditto for gold skulltulas; they’re mostly worthless because even though there are a hundred of them, you only need 50 to get the last meaningful reward (a piece of heart). In my prime OoT days, I think I had about 50-60 skulltulas vaguely memorized. Even in my childhood enthusiasm for OoT, and when I borrowed the player’s guide from a friend, I never collected all 100. It’s just not worth it for the useless payoff. But who knows what valuable items will be in golden skulltulas or will be the reward for getting all 100?

Good luck, you absolute madman.

Update 2! Holy crap, this thing has been like a rollercoaster. I'll leave you all with "the dark middle chapter" before we press on further.

• The four Gerudo guards (or is it just the one guard who keeps popping up?) had nothing on them: normally they drop the keys you need to rescue the carpenters, but this time it was a mix of deku nuts and skulltula tokens. Didn't have enough keys to save all the carpenters, so I don't get the Gerudo Pass.
• Lucked out as Young Link: a skulltula down by the lake had the Boomerang, allowing me to get a bunch of stuff from out-of-reach skulltulas elsewhere. It'll also be necessary for clearing Lord Jabu Jabu, once I have Ruto's letter to let me in.
• Most of these skulltulas gave heart pieces/containers, tokens, and rupees but one finally gave me my mana gauge. I can now use the Lens and the elemental arrows.
• Another skulltula on Death Mountain gave me the Forest Temple Boss Key. I can now complete it, provided I find a way in.
• After another long interval fruitlessly searching, I hit paydirt again by completing the adult Link fishing game: a bottle! A trick I remembered was dropping bugs on seed patches to get golden skulltulas.
• Nothing too good from the eight seed patch skulltulas I can reach right now (last two require warp songs), but I did get the rest of the Gerudo Fortress keys.
• Finished the Gerudo Fortress and received the Gerudo Pass. This will let me move onto the Desert Colossus/Spirit Temple.
• Also lets me try horseback archery mini-game (meh reward) and the Gerudo Training Grounds: need more keys for grand prize, but lots of smaller chests. Unfortunately, it's the Master Quest version, so there's some difficult challenges here.
• I couldn't get too far into the Gerudo Training Grounds without some other items, notably the Hookshot and Iron Boots/Zora Tunic combo, but I did find the Hover Boots! The Shadow Temple needs it, but it's also just handy for platforming in general. It also lets me cross hazardous terrain, like the quicksand at the Haunted Wasteland.
• Sadly, I cannot reach the Spirit Temple from the Haunted Wasteland because my Lens of Truth got glitched into a bottle somehow. This is something that can happen in the vanilla game too, I've heard.
• Missing the Lens is going to make the rest of the game considerably harder, if not downright impossible, but speedrunners have tricks to get around its absence. I don't have their level of expertise or geometry memorization but I'm hoping to get the Spirit Temple warp song (Requiem of Spirit) somewhere else and skip trying to cross the desert.
• Din's Fire obtained! It was the Death Mountain (Crater) Great Fairy reward. I can now enter the Shadow Temple, if I wanted. Should be fun with no Lens and about seven heart containers.
• Can't access Fire Temple without using the Hookshot to cross a gap... or at least I couldn't, if I didn't now have the Hover Boots as an alternative. Fire Temple go!
• Defeated Volvagia, but there's still quite a bit of the Fire Temple left to explore: I'll need to come back with the Hookshot and more keys.
• The Bolero of Fire was earned at usual trigger spot. Means I can get back here as Young Link for a few other items (there's a seed spot, which will net me a golden skulltula and a token on top of a volcano).
• Said seed patch gold skulltula at Crater got me the Gold Scale! Useful for exactly one item, all the way at the Lake Hylia lab (though I might use it again later if I don't get the Iron Boots soon).
• For the record, the Lake Hylia Lab Diving Reward was the map to the Great Deku Tree dungeon. Awesome.
• Shadow Temple is... hard enough with the Lens of Truth, and very annoying without it. Still, managed to find the Goron Bracelet and Mirror Shield. No boss key so this as far as I go.
• Lot more wandering after this. Did you know there's four chests in Mido's house? Well, there is, and I got two tokens and the Silver Gauntlets there. (The Silver Gauntlets let me pick up gray rocks, which lead to a few more caves and chests.)
• Finally, I broke the first of my two codes: using glitches. Thanks to OoT speedrunner Daniel Baamonde for the vid tutorial on how to get across the Haunted Wasteland without the Lens.
• Next time: The Spirit Temple! It better be worth the trip.

Current Situation:

1. Great Deku Tree and Dodongo's Cavern are done, but Lord Jabu Jabu can't be reached until I present Ruto's Letter to King Zora.
2. Likewise, I can't go to the small Ice Dungeon without first moving King Zora in the past, otherwise he just sits frozen in front of the entrance.
3. Forest Temple is out of reach, literally, until I find the Hookshot. Before then, I still need to get past Mido with Saria's Song, or warp directly to the Sacred Forest Meadow with the Minuet of Forest song.
4. Fire Temple is accessible, but I can't complete it yet. The Hookshot is needed.
5. Water Temple cannot be breached without both the Iron Boots and Zora Tunic. I don't have either yet.
6. Shadow Temple is accessible, but it's been hard going without the lens. I don't have the boss key or a few of the smaller keys, so... no Bongo Bongo yet. Fighting him without the lens should be fun.
7. The Bottom of the Well, normally a prerequisite for the Shadow Temple, is inaccessible until I get the Song of Storms and can drain the well in the past.
8. If you know how the Spirit Temple works, you know I have access to exactly half of it right now. I'll need the Requiem of Spirit to come back as younger Link for the other half. Fortunately, the adult half will be doable enough with the Mirror Shield in my possession.
9. Gerudo Fortress is done, though I'll be coming back to the Gerudo Training Grounds occasionally when I have the gear needed to pass its trials (and the keys to unlock the central labyrinth).

@bisonhero: @arbitrarywater: Mistakes were made.

Update 3: All right, one final update and then I'm done.

• Spirit Temple was kind enough to gift me the Hookshot, finally, as well as the Minuet of Forest. Both of those together are my ticket into the Forest Temple.
• Literally the first Hookshot-only gold skulltula I find, above the Sacred Forest Meadow maze near the Forest Temple, gets me the Longshot. There's not a skulltula I can't reach now.
• I already found the compass and boss key for the Forest Temple, so I'm feeling good that I'll complete it. I forgot how creepy the music was though.
• Forest Temple got me the Golden Gauntlets. I think I use these exactly once? Outside of the final dungeon, anyway. Sadly, Forest Temple's a linear dungeon and I don't have all the keys for it yet, so I'll have to come back later.
• (I believe the Golden Gauntlets and Longshot are what randomizers call "progressive items": that is, items that have multiple instances where you'll start with the weaker version and work your way up the chain regardless of what order you find them in. E.g. had I found the Golden Gauntlets in the Forest Temple before the Silver Gauntlets in Mido's House, the Forest Temple pair would be the Silver Gauntlets instead.)
• The Golden Gauntlets open the way to the Ganon's Castle Great Fairy. She normally gives you the half damage upgrade, which would've been an amazing boon to get early in a randomizer. This time she gave me bombchus. Gee, thanks.
• Forest Temple and Fire Temple are now both stymied by a lack of keys. I've at least defeated Volvagia, but as long as there's still chests/skulltulas in there I can't stay away just in case one of them has something vital inside.
• The Fire Temple revisit (with the Longshot) did net me something big though: the Adult Wallet. I can fill up on some rupees and hit the Carpet Merchant.
• The Carpet Merchant in the Haunted Wasteland has the second most expensive item in the game at 200 rupees (joint with the Goron Tunic), but it's usually bombchus so it's supposed to be a rip-off. However, the randomizer changes everything, so now it's... oh, still bombchus.
• A Spirit Temple revisit (which meant going through the desert with no Lens of Truth again...) unexpectedly netted me Ruto's letter, so now I can finally visit Lord Jabu Jabu and finish off the young Link-exclusive dungeons!
• Lord Jabu Jabu is the MQ version, which means lots of fun with wallcows. I also grabbed the Iron Boots here which, in conjunction with the Zora Tunic I found in the Spirit Temple, means the MQ Water Temple is next. Can't wait.
• Since it was on the way, sorta, I completed the smaller Ice Dungeon as Adult Link now that King Zora had moved. Worth it, as I got the Requiem of Spirit. No more trying to memorize the very specific speedrunner route through the Haunted Wasteland's "Phantom Guide" section, hooray.
• With that, and a few more Boss Keys I found along the way, I'm now all set to complete the four remaining Temples. That is, if I find enough small keys.
• MQ Water Temple was as unpleasant as I remember. Didn't have any (randomizer-related) issues clearing it out, though: I think it only needs two keys and so it only took one visit to complete in full. If I'm being honest the first thing I did was defeat Morpha, since its boss door is right in the starting central column area, because I was flirting with the idea of not even touching the rest of the dungeon.
• As I ended up with the last Gemstone after the Morpha fight, my trip back to Hyrule Castle as Young Link was suddenly interrupted by Zelda's escape from Ganondorf.
• The Ocarina of Time is a nothing item, turns out, since its sole purpose is to teach you the Song of Time (which I already had and used to open the Temple of Time).
• Likewise, the randomized song I gained from finding it was the Serenade of Water: the warp song for the dungeon I'd just completed. I don't have any reason to return to Lake Hylia either.
• All the same, Young Link had a mission: complete the other half of the Spirit Temple, as well as net the last few seed-related items in the Desert Colossus area.
• Though I had to bounce between the Fire, Shadow, and Spirit Temple a bit for keys, the rest of the game was smooth sailing.
• Of the few major items I had left, I managed to find most of them: Light Arrows (very important) and Farore's Wind from Spirit Temple, and the final Quiver and Bomb Bag upgrades from Shadow Temple.
• Also, I'd received the Water Temple Emblem from the Spirit Temple, which triggers the "Burning Kakariko Village" cutscene. This normally gives you the Nocturne of Shadow warp song, but instead I received the Song of Storms.
• The Song of Storms, in addition to opening a bunch of secret holes, lets me access the Bottom of the Well dungeon as Young Link, which had almost all the remaining dungeon items I needed for the last three Temples.
• One of those items was the much appreciated Double Defense upgrade. Too bad I didn't get that way earlier when I was taking on adult dungeons with four heart containers.
• And, most importantly, the Bottom of the Well had the Boss Key for Ganon's Tower, obtaining the last vital item needed to finally beat the game.
• Of course, Zelda decides to give me the compass to the Fire Temple (it's normally the Light Arrows in the dramatic Sheik reveal scene), which would've been useful a few hours ago.
• When it was time to face Ganon in his tower, I'd amassed almost my entire inventory and every upgrade. Not really a threat at that point.

When the dust finally settled, I had two missing heart containers and only 97 of 100 Gold Skulltula tokens. Also missing: the Giant Wallet, one Fire Temple key, and the Spirit Temple map.

Since the run was successfully over, I took the liberty of perusing the Spoiler Log (generated with every seed) to figure out where I'd forgotten to check. You know, in case I ever wanted to put myself through all this again.

1. The last ¼ piece of heart was with the Five Froggy Tenors: a mini-game I was ill-equipped to handle with this Steam controller's lousy touchpad subbing in for the C-buttons. (Seriously, playing with the Steam Controller was a mistake for this and for many other reasons, but that's my bad for not using something better equipped for the task at hand.)
2. That last Fire Temple small key required completing the Mask of Truth side-quest, one of the longest and most involved in the game. No thanks. (The other long trading quest, for the Biggoron Sword, would've netted me 20 rupees in the end. Glad I skipped it.)
3. The Spirit Temple map was in... the composers' grave? Huh. I wonder how I missed it. (Turns out I needed Din's Fire to light some torches, a tool I lacked on my first visit.)
4. The Giant Wallet was on a Golden Skulltula, which of course was the one behind the locked door in the Fire Temple.
5. Or two, I should say, since there was another up there with the last Heart Container. C'est la vie.
6. As for the Golden Skulltula tokens, one was definitely from the advanced Horseback Archery mini-game. I had no idea there was a second reward for it. No clue about the remaining two: OoT has a lot of "freestanding items," as the log calls them, which are just out in the world instead of in chests, and therefore don't appear on maps. Some are even buried under rubble and crates, so I imagine a missed a number of them.

That's going to do it for this randomizer run. It really demanded a degree of competency over this game I didn't think I could muster, but it's surprising how your mind works when you're cornered and desperate. I recalled stuff about this game I thought long buried; dunno if that says more about my perspicacity or just how memorably designed Ocarina of Time was. Only thing I needed to check was the non-Lens route through the Haunted Wasteland (and the game glitching away my Lens was some real BS) and the locations of some of the secret holes in the ground.

My final advice for other rando-runners? Do NOT mix in the Gold Skulltula Tokens with the general item pool. But also keep in mind that some necessary items might be tied up with the Gold Skulltula rewards anyway, so you might as well keep an ear out. Also don't do Keysanity for your first randomizer run through the game; that's just dumb, c'mon. Also, also, Ocarina of Time is still amazing and I can't wait to watch a professional take on the randomizer when it shows up at SGDQ 2020.

Thanks for sticking around this far! (I wonder if The Wind Waker has a randomizer yet...?)

@mento: Wow, you actually beat this! (sorry, didn't see this until now) I'm genuinely impressed you got past a keysanity, skultilla hell run.

Might end up trying to stream myself doing one of these. That could be a fun tangent after spending multiple hours playing RPGs dredged up from the bowels of hell.

What a wild ride.

How would the game handle the Biggoron trades? Since presumably the next trader in line is looking for the previous item, couldn't some mandatory items be locked in that quest? Maybe I missed that note.

@accolade: The first (Cucco Egg) and last (Biggoron Sword) items in the trading chain are in random spots, but all the middle steps (mushroom, potion, saw, etc.) are with their usual NPCs. So you might find the egg in a chest somewhere, follow the chain normally, and then end up with a different item from Biggoron instead of the sword.

The randomizer seed generator's options lets you skip steps too (say, by finding the saw in a random spot instead of the egg) if you're speedrunning and don't want to waste time doing the whole chain just in case there's a vital item at the end of it.