Forget Dance Pads, This Breath of the Wild Player Beat Calamity Ganon With an Ocarina

In recent years, the trend of beating challenging video games using objects as controllers that are not normally controllers has only grown. We’ve seen people beating games with dance pads, the bongo drums from Donkey Konga, literal bananas, Rock Band guitars, and more. Well, add “ocarinas” to the list, because someone just beat The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild by playing one.

I BEAT #BreathoftheWild WITH MY OCARINA pic.twitter.com/LieyyLLcR9

— ?LIVE NOW gv_mimi (@gv_mimi) April 10, 2023

Streamer gv_mimi, who goes by Mimi, is a variety streamer with a focus on Breath of the Wild challenges, speedruns, other Zelda games, and more. Since the beginning of March, they’ve been attempting to play The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild by mapping notes to an ocarina and playing it, note by note, to make Link move around and fight enemies. Needless to say, not an easy feat:

Baby’s first guardian with an Ocarina #BreathoftheWild Look at me go! ? pic.twitter.com/OL2bjXU9OZ

— ?LIVE NOW gv_mimi (@gv_mimi) March 10, 2023

But over the last month, Mimi has gotten pretty dang good at controlling Link with that thing, despite being limited by how fast they can breathe into the ocarina and the general clumsiness of making Link move in a 3D space with it. While at first they struggled to even fight regular enemies, Mimi slowly improved their skills, eventually tackling Breath of the Wild’s dungeons and bosses and finally, yesterday, defeating Ganon himself.

I BEAT THUNDERBLIGHT USING MY OCARINA ???#BreathoftheWild pic.twitter.com/b1xvLmRl0k

— ?LIVE NOW gv_mimi (@gv_mimi) March 22, 2023

Mimi tried to take a victory lap today by going through the Master Sword trials “upside down”, but in a tweet a few hours ago had to ditch the idea because “everything else broke.” They’ve also polled their readers asking which instrument and game viewers wanted to see from them next, offering up not just the ocarina, but a melodica, a piano, a clarinet, a recorder, a trombone, and an otamatone. We’re rooting for Wind Waker with a trombone.

IGN previously inteviewed streamer MissMikkaa, who beat Elden Ring’s Malenia not just with a dance pad, but later on two copies of the game simultaneously with a dance pad and a controller. And we’re all sure to see even more creative ways to beat Zelda games when Tears of the Kingdom comes out on May 12.

Rebekah Valentine is a news reporter for IGN. You can find her on Twitter @duckvalentine.