Happy Zelda Day!

December 26, 2015 6:06 PM

Zelda Day 2015:

• If you love the NES original but are sad you know where everything is, try the Zelda Randomizer! (Windows EXE, requires ROM). Tries to guarantee solvable games! YouTube play.
• Did you know that, in the original releases of N64 Ocarina of Time, if you hold the R button down when you get a certain item, you get a different one instead? Info with more OoT glitches.
• From Double Fine! Devs Play The Legend of Zelda, four parts: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4
• Fan animation, "Racing For Rupees".

posted by JHarris (32 comments total)

requires ROM

I would really love to play some Zelda today, but there's a serious lack of ROM in my life. Where are these magical things acquired?
posted by Llama-Lime at 6:16 PM on December 26, 2015

Other racing for rupees.
posted by curious nu at 6:23 PM on December 26, 2015 [1 favorite]

Hypothetically, one could search for "Zelda ROM" and find plentiful copies that fell off the back of a truck, but I wouldn't know anything about that. The real answer is buy a Wii U and get it on the eShop for $5, which is worth it.

Great post, JHarris. Finally, truly beating the original LoZ is next on my list... just as soon as I finish Link to the Past. :)
posted by whitecedar at 6:24 PM on December 26, 2015 [1 favorite]

Unreal 4 Zelda (there are quite a few of these little tech demos out there, this was just the first one I found today)
posted by curious nu at 6:25 PM on December 26, 2015 [2 favorites]

The Randomizer tool was made for speedrunners. It is interesting to read the list of guarantees for info on what needs to be done to ensure a game is winnable. The first screenshot on the screenshots page made me chuckle.
posted by JHarris at 6:30 PM on December 26, 2015

Is anyone trying to get those Unreal demo people together into one project?
posted by mhoye at 6:53 PM on December 26, 2015

I introduced my 6 and 4 year olds to original Zelda this year, and it is AMAZING how much of that game is burned into my muscle memory and long-term memorization, even after 25 years since the last time I played.

I was shocked to find that I even remember all of the monsters' names, though it takes about two seconds for them to come up from the depths of memory. "That's a ... Lik-Lik."
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 6:55 PM on December 26, 2015 [6 favorites]

I thought Zelda Day was February 21?
posted by rhiannonstone at 6:56 PM on December 26, 2015

"What if Zelda was a girl?" T-shirt.
posted by themanwho at 7:05 PM on December 26, 2015 [4 favorites]

System Of A Down tribute to Legend Of Zelda

I love the idea of these hardcore heavy metal dudes taking the time to record this. Zelda is for all!
posted by adept256 at 7:24 PM on December 26, 2015

The whole Zelda Day thing started a few years ago when three Legend of Zelda posts went up on the same December 26. It was too weird a situation to ignore, so since then, I've made a post about games on that day. A few others have over the years too, but I'm the only one who's been (for whatever reason) consistent about it.
posted by JHarris at 7:26 PM on December 26, 2015 [6 favorites]

System Of A Down tribute to Legend Of Zelda

That rendition is excellent, but it's a very old urban legend that that is System of a Down. It was played by a band called The Rabbit Joint.
posted by ignignokt at 7:45 PM on December 26, 2015 [10 favorites]

System Of A Down tribute to Legend Of Zelda

That rendition is excellent, but it's a very old urban legend that that is System of a Down. It was played by a band called The Rabbit Joint.

OMG THANK YOU. I've been wondering who really sang that for like 15 years.
posted by littlesq at 7:53 PM on December 26, 2015 [2 favorites]

I love the NES Legend of Zelda beyond all reason. I recently became the proud owner of one of the most niche-nerdy items I've ever seen: this book all about the translation and localization of the Legend of Zelda. This book is such a hardcore Zelda accessory it will make your wand-beams spout flames.
posted by duffell at 8:03 PM on December 26, 2015 [5 favorites]

If Super Mario Maker has been a smash hit, can Zelda Maker be far behind?
posted by naju at 8:16 PM on December 26, 2015 [1 favorite]

If Super Mario Maker has been a smash hit, can Zelda Maker be far behind?

Though its quest editor is not nearly as user-friendly, Zelda Classic predates Super Mario Maker by several years. There are some pretty great "3rd quests" available for download.
posted by duffell at 8:19 PM on December 26, 2015 [1 favorite]

There was a super recent glitch discovered in Ocarina of Time that lets you warp to the end:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aq6pGJbd6Iw
posted by LSK at 8:20 PM on December 26, 2015 [1 favorite]

That rendition is excellent, but it's a very old urban legend that that is System of a Down. It was played by a band called The Rabbit Joint.

Sigh. Next you'll tell me Link isn't real.

Kidding, thanks for the tip. Looking up Rabbit Joint now.
posted by adept256 at 8:28 PM on December 26, 2015

duffell, that book was written by Clyde "Mato" Mandelin, who works as a translator and also spearheaded the amazing fan translation of Mother 3. He runs a pretty darn cool Twitch stream.
posted by JHarris at 9:18 PM on December 26, 2015 [1 favorite]

That racing for rupees fan animation is excellent. Now to watch curious nu's...
posted by minsies at 11:17 PM on December 26, 2015

If you decide to use the Randomizer, may I suggest:
Seed: 789668986959
Flags: 2362RZPRC

I've been playing that one and have found it suitably interesting. I've died a few times (Lynels can be anywhere!) but I've managed to finish one dungeon so far. It'll force you to relearn a good part of the game while leaving enough to be familiar. Is fun!
posted by JHarris at 11:26 PM on December 26, 2015 [3 favorites]

Here's some hints for the flag and seed I mention above:

• In my plays, I've so far managed to get five Triforce pieces in 10 deaths. If you can get that many pieces in that many lives, I'd say you're doing very well!
• The key to starting out is to find the Recorder, which isn't in a dungeon.
• The White Sword is actually in a dungeon, and in fact in a room you have to clear of enemies!
• Triforce pieces, you'll discover quickly, are no longer guarenteed to be blocked by bosses, and in fact can be next to the entrance to the dungeon! You'll still want to explore each dungeon though, to find items you'll need to progress.
• The hints are messages from the original game, and are useless here. (There actually is an option to make them helpful, but I overlooked setting it. Oops.)
• The mix is set to include 2nd quest locations in its scrambling, and mixed up dungeons, but it still uses the general structure of the 1st quest dungeons (in different locations).

For Zelda Randomizer in general:

• One thing you'll have to unlearn, if you're a Zelda veteran, is ignoring old hint locations. Those places are thrown into the mix just like everything else, so an important item, or even a dungeon, could be in a place that had that boring message you read once the first time you played.
• Be aware: Door Repair Charges seem fairly common, and strangely can be in ordinary caves now. On the other hand, if you find one and have no money, you don't pay.
• The documentation suggests that you be aware of the "quick end" command, which is A+B+Up on Controller 2 from the subscreen. That sends the game to the Continue/Save/Quit screen without increasing the death counter. While the program does a good job of ensuring winnable games, it doesn't necessarily guarantee you won't get trapped in an shuttered enemy room you can't clear. Particularly beware of Gohmas, the crabs you have to hit in the eye with arrows, as a Bow is your only recourse against them.

posted by JHarris at 3:25 AM on December 27, 2015 [6 favorites]

More:

• The game could hide anything, anywhere, with the only limitation being things have to be hidden where something had been hidden in the original game, in either quest. The original game used secret item locations, in the first quest at least, as a way to give curious players extra advantages that weren't needed to win. (All of the important item locations and hidden dungeons were clued by messages in the first quest.) Games made by the Randomizer assume you know where all those are, and are not shy about hiding dungeons in those places. In this way, it's really a game for Zelda experts, since there is nothing stopping it from hiding a dungeon in the one location in the game you personally never knew existed. If you play with hints set to "Helpful," then the game will actually automatically generate messages to point you in the right direction... but, again, I neglected to set that setting in the key I gave. Oops.
• It takes quite some time to get started. I found all three hidden Heart Containers before I finished my first dungeon. And dungeon Heart Containers might not be hidden by a boss; you're as likely to get one just from clearing a room of normal enemies!
• Get the Blue Ring as soon as you can. Wait, that's obvious.

posted by JHarris at 1:36 PM on December 27, 2015 [4 favorites]

Some final tips for the seed I posted:

• Some important dungeons are hidden behind bomb caves in the mountainous region of Hyrule. They aren't quite as treacherous as they were before because now enemies other than sword-throwing Lynels appear there. You should definitely start searching with bombs as soon as you can.
• Several important stairs need the Recorder to find.
• Two dungeons, by the way, are in the top row of the overworld map. The moved Magic Sword cave is beside one of them. Unfortunately you'll need 14 Hearts to get it, and a couple I didn't even find in my game, so don't get Red Potions from the Take-Only-One rooms, whatever you do!
• Don't bother looking for the Red Candle, the darn thing's in Level 9. What isn't, however, is the Silver Arrow and Red Ring, which are normal dungeon items. Hooray: you can find them early and get a lot of use out of them, which was always the problem with them in the original game. Boo: if you miss the Silver Arrow in the dungeons, you'll be stuck when you finally get to Ganon. So make sure to find it!
• The game guarantees that every room can be reached and every treasure can be found. But you'll find there's enough trickiness in the randomizer's coding that it's not necessarily the case that it'll be easy.
• As near as I can tell, there are no push walls (hold against wall for two seconds in a dungeon) in the whole first quest. Of course, there are a number of push blocks, that reveal staircases.
• Although you'll have to beat Ganon and get the Triforce of Power from him to open the door, you'll still have to search a little bit afterward to find Zelda's room!
• Finally, the ROM doesn't support a second quest.

My stats: 14 Hearts, 13 bombs max, missing the Book and the Wooden Arrow (wasn't needed). 10 deaths, one Quick End (trapped behind a Gohma shutter without the Bow). Good luck!
posted by JHarris at 3:35 AM on December 28, 2015 [2 favorites]

These settings have been pretty fun to play so far: Seed: 789668986959, flags: 1P4CO25FK. It's close to what JHarris recommended, but the options are a little easier. (Most notably, the cave locations and layouts of dungeons are from the first quest only.)

It was definitely tough going in the beginning. It's hard to go anywhere without running across packs of lynels. But with a bit of exploration and grinding, I got the blue ring, magic shield, and magic sword pretty early.

Finding the dungeon entrances is tough, too. Most of them are hidden in spots that had minor secrets in the original game, and I'd forgotten where exactly they are. After bombing and burning in futility, I gave up and started using a map of the cave locations. The upside about the dungeon locations is that many of them easier to get to with full health. Some are closer to fairies than in the original. Or some of the more far-flung dungeons are guarded by enemies on the overworld that are pretty easy to farm for health.

Oh, and stock up on keys from the shops. In a few places, the randomizer has put keys behind locked doors.

Thanks for posting, JHarris!
posted by Banknote of the year at 9:42 PM on December 28, 2015 [2 favorites]

I was thinking that something like this for A Link To The Past would be great and maybe impossible due to the traversal gates of the dark world unless ensuring you get certain items before the end of the second dark world dungeon). Thankfully, A Link Between Worlds kinda serves as a remix of that game and shakes things up a bit in the process.
posted by ersatz at 12:20 AM on December 29, 2015 [1 favorite]

NES Legend of Zelda is nearly perfect for this kind of randomization, because its enemies are vulnerable to so many different approaches, and you can buy keys in shops. It almost seems like its action gameplay and map design could have been done entirely differently from each other.

I am a bit disappointed, though, that the game isn't able to randomize more. Even if you mix up shops, they'll still sell the same items. While a few items can end up outside of dungeons, they're usually in set locations, like replacing the Ladder Heart Container or Power Bracelet (which can be moved, but only between five set rooms). While the order you explore dungeons, the internal paths between their rooms, and even their starting rooms can be changed, the room layouts will still be the same. You can set the game to pick each dungeon shape from its First or Second Quest version, but if you choose to randomize the rooms, it seems it'll even restrict that selection to First Quest, regardless of the Mixed Dungeon setting. Maybe that's a feature they're working on later....

When The Legend of Zelda was first released, it was advertised as an endless adventure. When I finished the first quest and discovered that the game was now greatly different, in the Second Quest, it started to seem as if somehow they had accomplished that. Unfortunately, the cartridge only contained two quests. The Zelda Randomizer almost makes it seem that the old endless adventure promise might be possible, after all.
posted by JHarris at 1:48 AM on December 29, 2015 [3 favorites]

Oh, and Banknote of the year, even randomized, Zelda tends to contain many more keys than you need to completely explore it. Because its keys can be used cross-dungeon, you might be able to get around buying them by just finding spares in another level.
posted by JHarris at 1:49 AM on December 29, 2015

So in hindsight, I wish I had checked the "Print Quest Info" option before I started. This creates a text file with the locations of everything. I'm not at the point of needing that kind of cheat sheet (yet), but knowing it's there would be reassuring.

You can't go back later and check the box to get a location list for a ROM you're already playing, because checking the box moves everything around. (That way, a speed runner can't make an location list and claim they didn't.)
posted by Banknote of the year at 7:55 AM on December 29, 2015 [1 favorite]

JHarris, all of those limitations are a bummer, for sure, if you're looking to have a new casual-play Zelda adventure like you and I are doing. But I think speed runners see those limitations as features that let them finish in a reasonable amount of time. I was watching the creator of Zelda Randomizer on twitch (I forget precisely which video), and he was exploiting those limitations. Like the way that the rooms in a dungeon are shuffled, but they're still the same rooms: He was doing some process of elimination in level 9, using the rooms he'd seen so far to predict if he had item drops remaining.

And I guess I'm getting unlucky with keys on my randomized ROM: I've been hauling keys from one dungeon to another and still running out of reachable keys.
posted by Banknote of the year at 9:21 AM on December 29, 2015 [1 favorite]

Huh, weird. I may have a look later, it might actually be nice to play a version of the original Legend Of Zelda with some actual key scarcity for a change.
posted by JHarris at 9:44 AM on December 29, 2015

Played a bit of it last night, collected one Triforce piece and died once. I see what you mean about keys, although my first dungeon was way out in the mountains that gave me a couple extra keys by the end, and that helped me out a bit.

This one really loves to ambush you with Red Leevers! And those Lynels are in some very inconvenient places, yes. I did managed to get the Note before finishing the session.
posted by JHarris at 12:28 PM on December 30, 2015 [1 favorite]