Fight Strategies

The real Phantom Ganon is easy to spot because he makes sound and is brighter than the fake.

Standard fight

1. Shoot Phantom Ganon with the bow or hookshot for the 3 painting cycles
2. Jumpslash with a sword and get ISG with PG's Navi text or with a bomb if using bombs to damage down
3. Shoot bow/hookshot to make PG spin his staff once he is inside the arena
4. Stand near him to deflect light ball attack back into him and knock him down
5. Stand right up against him and spam bow to prevent him from flying away (see notes below)

Notes:

• ISG automatically deflects the light ball attacks back at PG, but occasionally it fails to. It does not deflect the low health spear attack.
• If you only have hookshot, stand inside PG, turn down-right to keep the ISG hitbox inside him, and spam hookshot

Glitchless fight

Damaging down

Phantom Ganon's lightning attack in phase 1 deals 2 hearts of damage, which is convenient for damaging down for skipping the Forest Medallion cutscene. Using explosives to damage down is faster, as using Phantom Ganon's attack does mean not hitting him as early as possible, but this method is useful when you don't have explosives available. The video below goes over how to do this consistently with hookshot.

Forest Medallion Cutscene Skip

This allows for Child Link to obtain the Forest medallion without crashing.

Bomb OI cutscene skip

Setup by Battemanne

Bomb OI is faster than backflip OI because it doesn't require dropping and catching a bottled item. However, because bomb OI involves a frame perfect input, backflip OI is easier, and it even ends up faster if you pause buffer more than 3 times for bomb OI.

1. Prepare by damaging down to 1h during the fight
2. After PG dies, sidehop left
3. Turn left
4. Press hookshot
5. Hold left and pull bomb within 12f of pressing hookshot
6. Bomb OI (looking for the first frame that Link's shield is fully past the yellow triangle on the ground)
7. Once the camera settles, press B to cancel OI with the control stick neutral
8. Input bomb, target, and left on the frame Link's arms are parallel to the ground; this is the second frame of their movement away from the ocarina pose
9. Input target, shield, and down on the frame Link's right and left feet overlap (see video) to drop the bomb and backflip
10. Midair, pull bottle and begin holding up (continue holding target and up for the remainder of the trick)
11. Swipe the bottle after reaching full walking speed
12. Continue holding target and up until Link dies

Backflip OI cutscene skip

Backflip OI is slower than bomb OI because it requires dropping and catching a bottled item. However, because bomb OI involves a frame perfect input, backflip OI is easier, and it even ends up faster if you pause buffer more than 3 times for bomb OI.

1. Prepare by damaging down to 0.5h during the fight
2. After PG dies, tap or ESS down for facing angle 0x0; if you need to back this up, target anywhere along the wall that the gate to enter the fight is on
3. Drop and catch fish/bugs
4. Sidehop into the right corner of the arena and sideroll once you're there
5. 2 sidehops left
6. Turn or ESS turn right
7. Backflip OI
8. Once the camera settles, press B to cancel OI with the control stick neutral
9. Input target, down, and bomb on the frame the sword is nearly vertical and covering Link's face; this is the second frame of their movement away from the ocarina pose
10. Input target, shield, and down to drop the bomb and backflip on the frame shown in the video (first frame that the fencepost is visible on the right side of the screen; around the peak of the second red bomb flash)
11. Continue holding down (no target) until Link dies

See video for additional notes.