Mini-Games and Side Quests

Phantom Hourglass hides five games that cost Rupees and pay out prizes, plus a handful of other side quests, and together they are worth a lot. They hand out an upgrade for each of three bags, four of the thirteen Heart Containers, Wisdom Gems, many Ship Parts and several Treasure Maps. This page covers each one in turn: where it is, what unlocks it, what it costs, how to score and exactly what you win.

Quick reference

Cannon Game

How to play the Cannon Game

The game is on Bannan Island. Walk to the rock cave southeast of the Old Wayfarer’s hut and blow open the wall with a bomb. Salvatore runs the counter inside and charges 20 Rupees a round. Your ship then sails a course on its own while you tap the screen to fire the cannon, so all you control is where and when you shoot.

Blue targets are worth 100 points and are destroyed when you hit them. Red targets are worth 20 points, but they survive a hit, so you can keep shooting the same one for more points. Pick out the blue targets first, then spend leftover time on the red ones.

Shooting Range

How to play the Shooting Range

Romanos opens a range on Molida Island once you have cleared the Temple of Courage and have the Bow. A round costs 20 Rupees and gives you 70 seconds with unlimited arrows. Ghost targets pop up around the range, and you tap to aim and shoot them.

A ghost target is worth 10 points, and every ghost you hit in a row without a miss adds 10 more, up to 50 points per target, so a miss breaks the streak. Targets showing a little girl are the opposite: hit one and you lose 50 points. Keep the streak alive by only firing when you are sure of the hit, and watch for the girls as the round speeds up.

Shooting Range prizes

What you win depends on your score:

The Quiver grows from 20 to 30 to 50 arrows. Your first score of 1,700 to 1,990 gives you the next step, and after the Temple of Courage the Mercay and Molida shops sell a Quiver upgrade for 1,000 Rupees as well, so you can reach the full size by playing and buying. The Heart Container is paid only the first time you reach 2,000 points, and after that any score of 1,700 or more brings a Ship Part, so the range stays worth a visit.

Goron Game

How to play the Goron Game

The game opens only after you clear the Temple of Ice, not the Goron Temple. Once Gongoron’s letter arrives in a mailbox telling you he has taken a part-time job on Dee Ess Island, the hidden island shaped like a Nintendo DS in the Southeastern Sea, you can play. Before then the operator says the game is not ready because he has no part-time worker yet. Pay 50 Rupees and steer Gongoron as he rolls through the course smashing 30 crystals against the clock; the record to beat is 35 seconds.

Draw his path with the stylus and keep him moving. Plan a route that sweeps through the crystals in one loop rather than doubling back.

Treasure Maze

How the Treasure Maze works

The maze covers all of Maze Island in the north of the Northeastern Sea. The island is not marked on your chart at first, so look for it once you own the Northeastern Sea Chart. Strike the Boing Statue near the entrance and pay the fee to start.

On each level you must find and hit a set number of Boing Statues before the timer ends, then reach the platform near the middle and open the prize chest. On Normal and Expert the statues vanish from your map after 20 seconds, so memorise them. Expert asks you to use the Grappling Hook to reach one of the statues, so bring the one you earned in the Temple of Ice.

Levels, costs and prizes

You must clear Beginner and Normal before Expert is offered. Treasure Map 27 leads to a sunken chest with a random Ship Part. Once all three levels are done, the Boing Statue gives you a chest with a Big Gold Rupee and lets you wander the island freely: bomb the cracked wall in the middle of the maze for a chest with a second Wisdom Gem, and three Big Green Rupees are buried there too.

Digging Game

How to play the Digging Game

The game is on Harrow Island, the grassy island with a stone wall in the Southeastern Sea. A Yook on the Isle of Frost tells you about it once you hold the Azurine, and Ciela adds it to your chart when you sail close. Pay the 50 Rupee fee. With the Shovel, you may dig up 10 treasures. Finds are Rupees, Treasure Maps and the occasional Rupoor, which costs you Rupees.

The Gossip Stone tells you when you have dug your tenth treasure, and you should stop there: dig again and you are fined 100 Rupees, then all your Rupees, and then banned until you pay 300 Rupees. Lucky Lee sometimes pops out of the ground and offers a chest gamble for 50 Rupees. The chests pay 40, 150 or 200 Rupees, or nothing at all, in which case you owe another 100 Rupees, so think twice.

Digging Game prizes

The prize you are chasing is the set of Treasure Maps 18, 19, 24 and 25. Where the maps lie changes every time you play, so you may need several rounds. Each map marks a sunken chest with a Ship Part, so bring the Salvage Arm.

Sword sparring on the Prince of Red Lions

How to spar with Nyeve

Sail up to the ship called Prince of Red Lions in the Northwestern Sea. Its owner Nyeve challenges you to a sword duel, and it costs nothing. There are four rounds, and you leave the ship and come back between them. Nyeve barely fights back in the first three, and each of those wins pays a Treasure. In the fourth round he strikes back with quick sword attacks and spins, and you must land 100 hits before he hits you three times.

Fishing

The Old Wayfarer on Bannan Island gives you the Fishing Rod once you have helped Joanne, the “mermaid”, reach his hut. The mini-game is played with the stylus. There are six fish to catch, and landing the legendary Neptoona wins a Heart Container. The full list of fish, the lures and every prize is on the fishing page.

Biggoron’s quiz

On Goron Island, greet every Goron on the island, then visit Biggoron at his house in the east. He asks six questions about the island, such as how many Gorons are outside. Pay the 20 Rupee fee, answer all six correctly and he gives you a Wisdom Gem. He also hands you a few Rupees for each right answer and a Gorohint that crosses out one wrong choice, but he takes the winnings back as dues at the end. Look around first and count.

Beedle’s ships

The Masked Ship

The Masked Ship belongs to Beedle’s assistant and is only open at set times by the DS clock: 10 pm to midnight on weekdays and 10 am to noon on weekends. It sells a Courage Gem for 500 Rupees and a Heart Container for 1,500 Rupees. Your Member’s Card points and discounts do not work here.

Mailbox letters

When a mailbox wiggles, step up and the Postman swoops down to read you a letter. Several of these letters carry Spirit Gems:

• Salvatore: a Wisdom Gem, after you play the Cannon Game once and clear the Temple of Wind.
• Aroo: a Wisdom Gem, after you clear the Temple of Ice.
• Gongoron: a Courage Gem, after you clear the Goron Temple.
• King Mutoh: a Power Gem, after you clear Mutoh’s Temple.
• Oshus: a Power Gem after the Temple of Wind, mailed to you if you do not talk to him first.

One more letter is a delivery job. Jolene’s letter, written to her sister Joanne, is brought by the Postman after you beat Jolene in her first duel, between the Temple of Courage and the Ghost Ship. Carry it to Joanne in the Old Wayfarer’s hut on Bannan Island for a Wisdom Gem, and she later mails you a random Ship Part as thanks.

Dead Man’s Volley

This one is not optional. On the Ghost Ship, the four Cubus sisters make you play a match of Dead Man’s Volley before you can free Tetra. They bat a glowing ball back and forth with you, and each sister goes down when your return hits her. There is no prize beyond moving the story along; the full fight is in the Ghost Ship walkthrough.