100 Tokens, 6 Rewards: What Ocarina of Time’s Gold Skulltula Locations Unlock

Hunting down every one of the Gold Skulltula locations in The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time is one of the game’s longest side quests. According to Polygon’s guide to the remake, there are 100 tokens scattered across Hyrule, and the payoffs are spread unevenly, with several early rewards and one very long wait for the last.

Why the Gold Skulltula hunt matters

The tokens double as collectibles and as the key to a story thread in Kakariko Village. A family there has been cursed and turned into Skulltulas, and the only way to lift the curse is to find the golden spiders and hand over their tokens. The guide warns that the job is easier said than done, since the spiders are described as extremely difficult to find.

The reward ladder, from 10 to 100

The rewards are front-loaded. Turning in 10 tokens gets you the Adult’s Wallet, which holds up to 500 rupees. At 30 you receive the Giant’s Wallet, which doubles that to 1,000. At 40 you get 20 Bombchus, the wall-climbing explosives that run off on their own before detonating. At 50 you receive a Piece of Heart, and the guide reminds players that four of them add up to a full heart.

After that, the guide says, nothing comes until you hand in all 100. The final prize is unlimited gold rupees. Each time you speak to the Restored Rich Man, he gives you one. It’s a long gap between the 50th and 100th token, so completionists should plan for it.

The Echo Gem is the reward to prioritize

The guide singles out the 20-token reward. The Echo Gem, when equipped, helps you detect nearby Gold Skulltulas through a combination of light and sound. Polygon calls it extremely helpful for finding the rest, so claiming it as soon as you reach 20 is the smartest move in the hunt. Players who skip the turn-in and keep collecting without it are making the remaining search harder than it has to be.

How the guide organizes Gold Skulltula locations

Polygon sorts the Gold Skulltula locations by region, with each section listed in chronological order. The regions are Kokiri Forest, Hyrule Field, Hyrule Castle, Kakariko Village, Goron, Zora, Lake Hylia, Gerudo and Ganondorf’s Castle. Each entry notes whether you need to be young or adult Link, what time of day it is and what items you need, along with the map and a description.

The guide’s first section covers 16 tokens across the Great Deku Tree, Kokiri Forest, the Lost Woods, the Sacred Grove and the Forest Temple. Several of the early entries show the kinds of tricks the hunt demands:

• Inside the Great Deku Tree, one token sits along the southern wall of the compass room, and another crawls on vines right after you land in the water below the giant web.
• One spider in the Deku Tree sits on metal bars by the water. You shoot it with the Fairy Slingshot and then jump at the token to grab it.
• In Kokiri Forest, a bug placed on soft soil east of the Kokiri Shop forces a spider out of the ground.
• Another spider appears on the west side of the Know-It-All Brothers’ house, but only at night.
• In the Lost Woods, two more tokens require placing a bug on soft soil. One is reached by taking the left path twice from the forest entrance. The other is reached by going right, left, right, left and left.

What to keep in mind

The excerpt of Polygon’s guide available here cuts off partway through the Lost Woods entries. It confirms the structure, the total of 100 tokens and the full reward list, but not the exact positions of the later spiders. Players tracking every one of the Gold Skulltula locations will want the complete guide, which also carries a spoiler warning for the remake.

The overall shape of the hunt is clear. Bugs, soft soil, time of day, ranged weapons and a careful search of every room all come into play. The earliest rewards, especially the Echo Gem at 20, make the quest worth starting even for players who don’t plan to hit 100.

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