Getting a 100% run in The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask is basically a descent into madness. It’s stressful. You’ve got a moon staring you down with those creepy, bloodshot eyes, and the clock is always ticking. But honestly? The real challenge isn’t the giants or the dungeons. It’s the Zelda Majora's Mask heart pieces. There are 52 of them. 52. That’s a staggering amount of exploration for a game that only has four main temples. Compare that to Ocarina of Time, which had double the dungeons but fewer heart pieces scattered in the wild.
If you want that full second row of health, you have to talk to everyone. You have to be a detective, a mailman, a dancer, and a gambler. It’s not just about combat; it’s about learning the schedule of every single NPC in Clock Town. Some of these are easy, like falling into a hole, while others require a level of patience that honestly feels a bit masochistic.
Why the Zelda Majora's Mask Heart Pieces are More Than Just Health
In most games, collectibles are just fluff. Here, they are the narrative. Because Majora’s Mask is built on a three-day loop, every heart piece represents a solved problem in someone’s life. You aren't just "finding" a collectible; you’re stopping a robbery, delivering a letter for a guy who’s too scared to leave his post, or winning a horse race against two suspicious brothers.
Most players get stuck around the 40-mark. They’ve done the obvious ones. They’ve checked the grottoes. They’ve beaten the mini-games. But then you hit the wall. The wall is usually made of things like the Town Archery Gallery or the dreaded Honey and Darling’s Shop. If your aim is shaky or your timing is off, those heart pieces will haunt your inventory screen forever.
The Clock Town Grind
Clock Town is the hub of your anxiety. It’s also where a huge chunk of your health upgrades live. You’ve probably grabbed the one on the tree in North Clock Town by jumping from the slide. Easy. But have you spent three days straight waiting for the postman? To get the heart piece from the postman, you have to catch him at the Milk Bar or his office and play a mental timing game. You have to stop a timer exactly at ten seconds. Without the Bunny Hood, it’s a nightmare. With the Bunny Hood, the game keeps the timer on-screen, making it a joke. It’s these little nuances—knowing which mask breaks which mechanic—that separates a casual playthrough from a completionist run.
Then there’s the Title Deed swap. This is a massive, multi-step trading sequence that spans the entire map. You start with a Moon’s Tear, give it to a Deku Scrub in town, take his Land Title Deed, and then keep trading up. Swamp, Mountain, Ocean, Canyon. Each time you trade, a new Deku Scrub flies away, leaving a flower you can use to launch yourself to a nearby heart piece. If you mess up the order or forget to grab a piece before resetting time, you’re starting the whole chain over. It’s tedious. It’s brilliant. It makes the world feel interconnected in a way modern open worlds rarely achieve.
The Absolute Worst Heart Pieces to Obtain
Let's talk about the Keaton Quiz. To even see a Keaton, you need the Keaton Mask. Then you have to find a patch of grass that wiggles when you cut it. If you’ve got the mask on, a three-tailed fox appears and grills you on trivia. Do you know the name of the mayor’s wife? Do you know what time the cow-obsessed sisters go to bed? If you haven't been paying attention to the lore, you’re going to fail. It’s a literal exam on the game’s flavor text.
- The Beaver Race: This one is located in Great Bay. You have to swim through rings. Under a time limit. Twice. The controls for Zora Link are fluid, sure, but the camera can be your worst enemy here. One wrong bank and you’ve missed a ring, and the beaver brother just laughs at you.
- The Couple’s Mask Sidequest: This is widely considered the best sidequest in Zelda history. Anju and Kafei. It takes all three days. You have to be at specific places at specific seconds. If you miss the mailman at 6:00 PM on Day 2, or if you fail to hide in the Sakon’s Hideout on Day 3, the quest fails. The reward is the Couple’s Mask, which you then take to the Mayor to get... one heart piece. All that emotional trauma for 1/4th of a heart container.
- Deku Playground: Three days of different challenges. If you fall, you restart. It’s a test of depth perception and patience.
Secrets in the Four Regions
Once you leave the safety of Clock Town, the Zelda Majora's Mask heart pieces become more tied to environmental puzzles and combat. In Woodfall, there’s a piece just sitting on a chest near the temple entrance, but you need the right shortcut to reach it. In Snowhead, you’ll find one frozen in a block of ice or hidden under a layer of snow that only a Goron’s pound can reveal.
Great Bay is probably the most dense area for these. Between the Zora Hall and the various islands, you'll be spending a lot of time underwater. One of the most overlooked pieces is in the Marine Research Lab. You have to feed the fish in the tank. Not just once. You have to catch smaller fish in bottles and drop them in until one fish grows massive and eats the others. It’s weird, slightly morbid, and exactly why this game is a cult classic.
📖 Related: CoC Town Hall 17 Explained: The Massive Shift in Strategy and Why Your Old Layouts Are Dead
Down in Ikana Canyon, things get spooky. There's a heart piece guarded by four Poe sisters in a ghost hut. You have to fight them all under a time limit. If you’re low on arrows or magic, don't even bother. Then there's the Secret Shrine behind the waterfall. This place is a gauntlet. You need at least 16 hearts just to enter some of the rooms, and you have to fight mini-bosses from earlier in the game. It’s a late-game cleanup area that tests if you’ve actually mastered the combat mechanics.
The Moon Trials
Most people think the game ends when you play the Oath to Order. Nope. If you want the final heart pieces and the Fierce Deity Mask, you have to go to the Moon. Inside, you’ll see kids wearing the masks of the four bosses running around a tree. Each kid takes you to a mini-dungeon.
These dungeons are the ultimate tests. The Goron one requires perfect rolling. The Zora one requires precise swimming. The Link one is a gauntlet of Iron Knuckles. Each of these sub-areas contains one of the final Zelda Majora's Mask heart pieces. If you skip these, you’re not just missing health; you’re missing the most surreal, dream-like content the developers ever put into a Zelda game.
Common Misconceptions and Pitfalls
A lot of guides tell you to get the heart pieces as soon as possible. Honestly? That’s bad advice. You should wait until you have the Bunny Hood and the Zora Mask. Trying to collect pieces without the speed boost of the hood is just a waste of your limited in-game time.
Also, people often forget about the Seahorses. In Great Bay, if you help a seahorse reunite with its mate at Pinnacle Rock, you get a heart piece. But you have to deal with those giant sea snakes. Most players kill the snakes, get the piece, and leave. But you have to actually have the seahorse in a bottle. It’s a multi-step process that involves a photo of a Gerudo pirate. It’s convoluted.
Another one people miss is the Banker. If you deposit 5,000 rupees, he gives you a piece. 5,000! In a game where your wallet usually caps at 500. You have to grind. You have to kill the Blue Bubbles or the bird outside Clock Town repeatedly, deposit, reset time, and repeat. It's the only "grindy" part of the game, but it's necessary for that 100% completion.
📖 Related: Assassins Creed Syndicate Jack the Ripper: Why This DLC is Better Than the Main Game
The Visual Check
If you’re looking at your sub-screen and you see a gap, check the Bombers' Notebook. While it doesn’t explicitly list heart pieces, it lists every person who has a problem. If there’s a finished quest with no "gift" icon next to it, you probably missed the heart piece associated with that person.
The 3DS version (Majora's Mask 3D) changed a few locations. For example, the piece in the Woodfall area was moved slightly to make it more "intuitive," but for veterans of the N64 original, it’s just confusing. Always make sure you’re looking at a guide for the specific version you are playing. The fishing holes in the 3DS version also added two brand new heart pieces that didn't exist in 2000.
Actionable Strategy for Completion
Stop trying to grab them one by one. Group them by region and time of day. Spend one "Cycle" (the full three days) dedicated entirely to Clock Town. Spend the next cycle just in the Swamp.
- Day 1: Focus on the timed events. Start the Anju/Kafei quest. Do the postman's training. Hit the archery gallery when it opens.
- Day 2: Travel to the outer regions. Use the Song of Soaring to hit the owl statues and grab pieces that require specific masks you’ve unlocked.
- Day 3: This is for the "climax" of quests. Finish the Title Deed swaps. Go to the curiosity shop. Head to the Moon if you've finished the temples.
Don't forget the Piece of Heart in the graveyard on the Second Night. You have to use the Captain's Hat to tell the Stalchildren to open a grave. If you do it on the First Night, you get a different reward. This is a mistake people make all the time. They check the grave on Day 1, get the Song of Storms, and assume they're done. Go back on Night 2.
To really wrap this up, your best bet is to use the Stone Mask. It makes you invisible to most enemies. This allows you to walk through difficult areas—like the Pirate's Fortress—without getting caught, making the heart piece hunt significantly less frustrating.
Once you have all 52, you’ll have 20 full heart containers. You'll be nearly invincible, which is a bit ironic because by the time you get them all, there’s nothing left to fight except the final boss. But that’s not the point. The point is that you saved everyone. Every heart piece is a receipt for a good deed done in a world that was doomed to end.
Your Next Steps
Start by grabbing the Bunny Hood in the Romani Ranch on Day 1 or 2. It is the single most important tool for heart hunting. After that, go to the North Clock Town tree and work your way clockwise through the city. Don't leave for the Southern Swamp until you've cleared at least five pieces from the town center. If you're playing the 3DS version, go check the fishing holes immediately—those are often the "missing" pieces for veterans.