Flag Race short course guide for Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom

The Legend of Zelda series is home to some of the most iconic villains in all of gaming, and Echoes of Wisdom has just introduced a brand-new one, which is the Flag Race mini-game. If you haven’t encountered it already, you’ll unlock it after completing a few specific steps. First, you need to have progressed far enough in the story that Impa tells you about a white horse (you can’t miss it, don’t worry). From there, you’ll need to head to Hyrule Ranch and then close a rift to unlock Zelda’s signature white horse. However, that’s where the challenge starts: upon unlocking this specific horse, Hyrule Ranch starts offering the Flag Race mini-game that has exclusive prizes within. And the Flag race short course is particularly difficult.

How to beat the Flag Race short course (and other difficulties)

There are three difficulties offered at the Flag Race: the short course, the medium course, and the long course. To unlock the medium course, you have to win at the short course; to unlock the long course, you have to win at the medium course. Despite the way this is laid out, the Flag Race short course is arguably the most difficult one. Here’s a tip that will save you lots of time: it might feel like cheating, but you can actually use Tri to move boxes and shrubs out of your way rather than being forced to go around them. When you do, the box or shrub will be held in front of you for a while. We’d recommend releasing Tri’s grip on the object as soon as possible; it’s a particularly good idea to let go of the object right before turning a corner and then initiating a horse dash after you turn the corner. Speaking of corners, we’d also recommend starting a horse dash as soon as you turn corners in general. Some of the flags in this course are on straight paths, and you can barrel ahead and use Tri to clear the way to save precious seconds. For clearing the Flag Race short course in under 20 seconds, you will receive 20 Rupees. For clearing it in under 17, you will receive 3 Might Crystals. We cut it so close using these methods that our time was 16.99 – so even with our tips, you might still need more than a couple of tries. This is a tough one!

The Flag Race medium course is actually quite a bit easier, and it’s the most self-explanatory of the three. Use dashes after passing the arrows, since most of them (except for the one near the end pointing to the stack of boxes near the trees) lead you to empty space perfect for dashing. Turn corners at tight as you can and you shouldn’t have too much of a problem with this one! For clearing the course in less than 25 seconds, you will receive a Prismatic Music Box. For clearing it in under 20 seconds (we did this first try, so it shouldn’t be super difficult), you receive a Piece of Heart.

We’ll also be continuing our guide coverage for Echoes of Wisdom, so check out our full list of posts and news updates on the game to stay tuned for those.

The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom is available now for Switch, and you can check out the official website for it right here.