The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess

The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess is Nintendo's answer to people wanting a second Ocarina of Time after getting disappointed with Wind Waker. Afterwards, those same people complained about the game being too similar to Ocarina of Time... hypocrisy much?

Debug Mode
A debug mode can be activated by changing the byte "" at in the ISO file. to disable debug mode,  to  enable debug mode on development consoles, and  and higher always enable it. Alternatively, it is easier by simply using the Action Replay code in any version. To activate the debug console screen, press Z on a controller in controller port 3.

With the activation of the debug mode, you can see the sound levels directly at the bottom of the screen with bars of different colors.



It is also possible to see the debug console of the game, which shows the current memory and creates new lines of code when changing the room. The most visible is the internal name of the room being played.

Unused Music
The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess contains three leftover streams from early Electronic Entertainment Expo builds and demos:

TitleLogoE3
TitleLogoE3 was featured in the early E3 2005 demo build of Twilight Princess, the year in which the game was first revealed.

TitleLogoE3_2006
TitleLogoE3_2006 is the title theme featured in the 2006 E3 demo. It bears a striking resemblance to TitleLogoE3, yet remains distinctly different, with different instrumentals and reverbed howl.

stageselect_e3_2006
Stageselect_e3_2006 is the exact same Hyrule Field theme showcased in the final game. This particular copy of the stream, however, was featured in the 2006 E3 demo as a stage selection menu theme.

Z2cswave
Z2cswave is the Wii Remote sound file for Twilight Princess, which contains two unused Navi sound clips. It is found under Audiores/Z2CSRes.arc/bin/z2cswave.csw

spkwave
Z2cswave is an unused Wii Remote sound file for Twilight Princess, which contains some unused Mario sound clips. It is found under Audiores/Z2CSRes.arc/bin/spkwave.csw Within these sound effects are few early sound effects from Super Mario Galaxy, which was in development at the time.

Black Chu Jelly


A fully working item. Drinking it makes Link lose one heart, similar to the Nasty Soup received from Coro in Faron Woods. It's item number.

Green Chu Jelly
donW3DefifY This game is one of the few Zelda games which does not feature a magic meter. However, due to a programmer's oversight, you can still get a green potion in the Wii version. In the Cave of Ordeals, in the room with several Chu Chus, it is possible to make a blue and a yellow Chu Chu merge together, which then become a green Chu Chu (this color doesn't appear anywhere else in the game). Killing it awards you a green potion, which is supposed to refill your magic meter, similar to several other Zelda games. However, Twilight Princess has no magic meter. As a result, it has no effect, nor text. Green Chu Jelly still exists in the GameCube version's data, but you cannot obtain it in any way. Merging Blue and Yellow Chus will instead create a Purple Chu in the GameCube version. Green Chu Jelly is item number.

The back of the Wii version's cover has a screenshot depicting a magic meter on the HUD, much like in other Zelda games. (Image)

Magic Potion
The same as Green Chu Jelly. It's item number.

Fire Arrow
A possible placeholder item is obtainable through Gecko codes, but it doesn't do anything. It's item number.

Surf Leaf


Another placeholder item which uses the Hylian shield icon; the Surf Leaf is item number. It was most likely meant to be the leaf used for snowboarding from Snowpeak Top. The Japanese internal name for the surfing item is "Shield Surfing", indicating that Link would snowboard on his shield.

Rupoors


A fully working item from previous Zelda games, most notably Four Swords, which takes Rupees away from you when collected. It's only obtainable via hacking. The Rupoor is item number.

Bottled Blue Fire
An item from Ocarina of Time. It does have an icon. It takes up item numbers to.

Unusable Ooccoo
The Ooccoo item which doesn't work. It's item number.

4th Vessel of Light


A placeholder item which doesn't have text. It's item number.

Early Ordon Sword
An unfinished early version of the Ordon Sword. It has a different icon. It's item number.

D_MN11B
Room 49



Twilight Princess has only one unused room. It is in the part with the mini-boss room of Snowpeak Ruins. Instead of having one room like other mini-boss rooms, this one has two rooms.

D_MN11B (Mini-Boss Dungeon) R49_00.arc (Unused) R51_00.arc STG_00.arc

The room contains 2 Clawshot targets and an invisible object in the middle. Outside of the map there is a door, a switch, and several suits of armour. Moon jumping to a certain position outside of the map will activate the mini-boss. The switch is used to open the door.

D_MN11B R49_00 - Details and Textures

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Possible old Mini-Boss room

The BMD model for this room is not used for the final mini-boss room. This model appears to be a test model because it only uses one texture and it wasn't used in the final game. For some reason, this model has replaced an older model of this old mini-boss room, but the objects remain in the same locations, which allows us to know a little more about the form of the old room. Here is an example:



Codes

S_MV000


It is the last room of the list and with a name very different from other "S_MV000". This room does not contain much, only two locations starting point for Link. Otherwise, there is no collision and no model BMD.

Codes

Unused Enemies
There are four unused enemies still coded in this game. Two of them can be seen in action here.

Black "Armos"


The first is a large humanoid creature that attacks by smacking you with its hands. It resembles the Guardians of the Sacred Grove. A few well-placed hits to its crystal will disable it for a while. Judging from its appearance, it is possible that it appeared in the Temple of Time or the Palace of Twilight.

Goron Golem


The second is a giant golem made of a collection of Gorons. The group wanders around aimlessly, at first, but once you come near it, they morph into the golem and try to attack you. The golem has no collision, so it was possibly cut earlier than other cut enemies.

Green Chu Chu


An unused Chu Chu variant. It leaves the unused Green Chu Jelly when killed. This Chu is used in the Wii version where blue and Yellow Chu Chus can merge into Green Chu Chus.

Black Chu Chu


Another unused Chu Chu variant. It leaves the unused Black Chu Jelly when killed.

Wind Waker Leftovers


"itemmdl.arc" contains models of 21 items from The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker which suggests Twilight Princess uses the Wind Waker engine.

Bomb Flower


Bomb Flowers are not normally found in Twilight Princess, but they do exist in the game files. Either it's another leftover from Wind Waker, or they were actually planned to appear in the game somehow.

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Strange giant with glasses


This character is a large giant with white and purple lines. The face is yellow and wearing glasses. The character serves no function, and could be presumed to be a placeholder. Given its tremendous size, and the fact that various models in the game match up heights to the stripes, it might actually have been a height reference.

Early ghost soldiers


It is possibly an older version of ghost soldiers, presumably predating the Game Developers Conference 2005 trailer.

Early Shadow Beast


This creature of the twilight is possibly an older version of the Shadow Beast. It is viewable on a trailer from Game Developers Conference 2005 when Link defeats one in a forest. It is still present in the game data as a model. It uses more or less the same movements as the Beast Shadow of the final version. Given its face and the fact that it is only seen in said forest, it may actually have been a shadow Bokoblin.

Developer messages
Hidden in Sample.arc is a few .txt files, one of which is a somewhat lengthy discussion between two programmers.

file0.txt - file1.txt - file2.txt

Unused Text
Please select a stage. PAUSE SELECT STAGE Select Back OK Start Thank You for Playing the Demo START Demo 2:Meeting Ilia (take [Link]'s horse to the spring) Demo 4 (First half):Enemy appears at spring [Link] in the darkness

These appear to be remnants of a demo version of the game.

Epona Rodeo strategy (Rescue Epona) Flag 56 has been turned ON. Saw the demo where Colin is abducted. Flag 53 has been turned ON. Saw the demo where Colin is saved. Flag 85 has been turned ON. Saw the demo of Prince Zora being saved. (Convory sucessful) Flag 68 has been turned ON. North south bridge mirror space big small mysterious shield test 20060713 22:11pm The darkness has been in Kakariko Village has been lifted. Flag 61 has been turned ON. Carriage convoy game start Flag 66 has been turned ON. Lava fusion event temporary demo Please end the dark cargo (big) event (Event flag 84 = please turn it ON) After seeing the lava fusion on Death Mountain Flag 65 has been turned ON. (Condition: Even flag 84 has been turned ON)

Some debug text related to various event flags.

There is a save file for this game on the Memory Card in Slot A. Would you like to transfer this data to the Wii? Unable to find Memory Card in Slot A. In order to copy save data from a Memory Card, please start over.

Apparently, there was once planned to be a feature to transfer saves between the GameCube and Wii versions of the game.

You don't have any magic power... You know you can't turn into a beast without it!

An interesting bit of text which reveals that magic power was once a requirement to transform into Wolf Link.

Hiragana Katakana English END Furigana

The text for the Japanese version name input screen has been oddly translated to English, even though it uses a different one. The furigana option is used in the Japanese version, to show kana over kanji to make the text more accessible to younger audiences. All of these obviously go unused in the localized versions.

Cover Resist Put together Fasten

Unused action commands.

Unused Item Text
Black Chu Jelly

Jelly from the black Chu. Text for the unused Black Chu Jelly.
 * It smells bad even with the lid closed.
 * Looks like you can set it to and drink it with (X) or (Y) but...

Green Chu Jelly Text for the unused Green Chu Jelly item.

Magic Potion Text for the unused Magic Potion item.

Fire Arrow Text for the unused Fire Arrow item.

Surf Leaf Text for the unused Surf Leaf item.

You cannot use the Gale Boomerang in this room Unused message. In the final game, unauthorized items are simply greyed out. Also, notice the missing dot.

Unused icons
These icons are found in the game files, but never actually used by the game.



Some of these appear to be simple leftovers from The Wind Waker, like the Elixir Soup. The demon Tetra icon may have been a placeholder until Midna's design was finalized.

The Mirror Shield icon is the most interesting, because it is clearly modeled after the icon from the Nintendo 64 version of Ocarina of Time, yet it is an entirely new graphic. Twilight Princess is one of the few Zelda games with no Mirror Shield, but there may have been plans to include this item in the game. The presence of a redrawn Hookshot may also mean that it was intended before the Clawshots.

Linker .map files
The US version ships with a folder containing the complete symbols for the game binary. These files would have helped the developers figure out how the game would crash, to make debugging easier.

They were used not only to understand the game itself, but was an aid in understanding the APIs involved in Wii development.

Two Test Models
In the file "Sample.arc" folder "bmdr" contains two test models with no textures. One of the two models is a horse, which could be a early version of Epona, or Ganon's Horse.



Strange model "M_TetsuSaku00A"
In Sample.arc, there is a file simply called a. It seems to be in the same format as the R_00 Hyrule Castle model from The Wind Waker. It is dated October 14th, 2004.

The model itself is the same box model as the DZB collisions in the same archive are.



Sample.arc Detail File
/bck test.bck (Test model animation) /bmdr file1.bmd (Unknown model) file2.bmd (Early Epona's model) /dir file0.txt (Text file) file1.txt (Text file) file2.txt (Developer messages) /dir5 a (M_TetsuSaku00A) /dzb file2.dzb (M_TetsuSaku00A model collision) file.dzb (M_TetsuSaku00A model collision) /evt event_list.dat (Test file event)

Revision differences
The initial Wii release has more glitches; these were fixed in the GameCube release and all later Wii versions released in North America. In contrast, there are some relatively harmless glitches exclusive to the GameCube release, most notably those used as speedrunning techniques.

Cannon bug
If you go to the room with the cannon and save your game inside, once you reload your saved game you won't be able to warp out or leave. The game thinks Shad, who isn't around to see you, is still there even though he's nowhere to be seen. This leaves you stuck in the room forever.

Cave of Ordeals
A debug routine in the Cave of Ordeals was left in the game. Putting out the torches on one floor with the Gale Boomerang would open the door in the next floor down, allowing you to easily traverse the whole Cave of Ordeals without having to fight most of the monsters.

Also, as mentioned above, if a Blue Chu and Yellow Chu merge, they will become an unique Green Chu in the Wii version, something not possible in the GameCube version.

Eternal Game Over bug
If you were to try to warp underwater the same moment Link is about to drown, the game would get stuck on the Game Over screen eternally. This bug was fixed in later versions by not allowing you to warp underwater.

Snowpeak bug
On Snowpeak, by standing next to Yeto and hitting the tree with the Ball and Chain at a specific point, Yeto would talk to you automatically, which caused the game to freeze right as the race started.

Map Glitch
In early Wii versions of the game, the warping sequence could be interrupted by reading/talking to something and opening the map at the same time, which caused Link to read/talk instead of warping. This would disable most map triggers like loading zones and out-of-bounds triggers, leading to several sequence breaks, such as ascending Snowpeak without the Reekfish Scent. In later versions of the game, disrupting the warp sequence in this manner will not have any side effects.

People who played the GameCube version had an even easier time; they could just press D-Right and Z at the same time, and after selecting a warp, Midna would pop up to interrupt the warping sequence. This was fixed in the Japanese GameCube release.

Build Date
The file COPYDATE.txt has a date and time for when the game was possibly completed. It is listed as such in the GameCube version:

2006/11/06 18:16

The Wii version of this file is dated earlier:

2006/10/10 20:35