The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past

The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past
Also known as: Zelda no Densetsu: Kamigami no Triforce (JP) Developer: Nintendo Publisher: Nintendo Platform: SNES Released in JP: November 21, 1991 Released in US: April 13, 1992 Released in EU: September 24, 1992 This game has unused enemies. This game has unused graphics. This game has unused items. This game has debugging material. This game has regional differences. This game has revisional differences. This game has a prerelease article

The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past is the third game in the long-running Zelda series, and the first (and with the exception of a few BSX titles, only) 16-bit entry. Featuring two large worlds to explore, loads of secrets, and a fun assortment of items, this game is a fan-favorite.

It was later re-released on Game Boy Advance, bundled with the multiplayer-only (for some reason) Four Swords.

Debugging Features

Full Inventory/Walk Through Walls

Use Pro Action Replay code 0083F8EA, then create a file with a name beginning with B in the first save slot to enable the following debugging features:

• You start with 15 hearts, 255 rupees, 50 bombs, and 50 arrows in the Light World.
• You have a complete inventory. Your four Bottles are filled with a Fairy, and one each of the Red, Green, and Blue Potions. Additionally, you have the Pegasus Boots, Flippers, Titan's Mitt, Moon Pearl, Fighter's Sword, and Blue Shield.
• Press B on Controller 2 to enable free-movement mode, which will allow Link to freely pass through obstacles. It will also allow you to use the Magic Mirror anywhere on the overworld, even to warp from the Light World to the Dark World (which is not normally possible).
• Press R on Controller 2 to remove the selected item or weapon while the status sub-screen is on.

Full Restore/Equipment Upgrade

Use the PAR code 0683C1EA, then create a file named BAGE (JP: ンルルル) in the first save slot to enable the following debugging features:

• Press R on Controller 1 to permanently cut magic consumption in half.
• Hold R and press B on Controller 1 to enable free-movement mode, which will allow Link to freely pass through obstacles. It will also allow you to use the Magic Mirror anywhere on the overworld, even to warp from the Light World to the Dark World.
• Hold R and press A on Controller 1 to upgrade your sword, armor, and shield by one step. Once the sword is upgraded to Level 4, pressing the A button again will reset all three items to Level 1.
• Hold R and press Y on Controller 1 to max out your life, magic, arrows, bombs, and keys, as well as add 255 Rupees.
• Hold R and press Select on Controller 1 to access to the Triforce after the fight against Ganon. Works for three save slots and with any name.

Frame Advance

PAR code 00803A00 enables frame advance. Press L on Controller 1 to freeze the game; while frozen, press R to advance one frame. Press L again to resume normal play.

Unused Graphics

Dungeon Features

Skull Statue

The Skull Woods dungeon tileset contains an unused large skull statue object. This can be seen in a tile viewer, but it's also possible to cause the game to load them into other dungeons via glitching. This tile goes unused in the SNES port, but it is used in the GBA remake for the Palace of the Four Sword (only accessible by beating Four Swords).

The screenshot shows the skull tile loaded into the Dark Palace dungeon, replacing the Rocklops statues in the first room. An explanation of how to perform this glitch can be found here.

(Source: Flying Omelette)

Sanctuary Entrance

Every dungeon entrance has a specially decorated entrance doorway, the only exception being the Sanctuary. There is an entrance doorway for the Sanctuary, but it can't be seen by normal means. It can be seen by either moving through certain walls, or via Hyrule Magic's map editor.

Keyhole

Unused graphics for a keyhole object. Could have been used in any number of places.

Items

Meat

Stored with the graphics for the large and small magic refill decanters are sprites for a large and small piece of meat on a bone, looking extremely similar to the Bait from The Legend of Zelda. Whether it would have worked in the same manner is unclear. It takes up the space that graphics for the fish appear normally, but is loaded in indoor areas, so it may have simply been some kind of object for use in houses. Perhaps it was an alternate health-restoring item found indoors, much like the Apples that appear from trees outside.

This may have been originally planned for enemies to drop large and small meat chunks for health refills, with the larger one restoring more life hearts than the smaller one. In the final game, enemies drop hearts instead of meat, and they only ever refill one life heart at a time.

Magical Clock

An unused stopwatch object! This would presumably work like the Magical Clock item in Zelda 1, freezing any onscreen enemies. It appears alongside graphics such as Rupees, so it was probably intended to be dropped by enemies in the same manner as the original game. It was presumably removed because the Quake Medallion performs a similar effect.

Sword Text

Japanese text for "ken/tsurugi", which means "sword", and is fittingly found near the sword graphics in memory.

Letter

The Letter (called てがみ (tegami) in the Japanese version, but untranslated and blank in the English version) is another item making a return from Zelda 1. As in that game, it uses the same sprite as the Map. It can actually be added to the inventory in all versions of the game; it occupies the spot of the Magic Mirror, suggesting that you needed the Letter to acquire the Mirror at some point in development, in the same way you need the Shovel to acquire the Flute, which then takes the Shovel's spot in the inventory. It's unknown exactly why the letter was canned.

To add it to your inventory, use Action Replay code 7EF35301. In both versions, the item acts exactly like the Magic Mirror when used.

NPC Sprites

Duck Sprites

The duck has additional frames of animation that are never used - one of his wings up really high and one of him leaning back slightly, which looks like it could have been used for picking Link up and dropping him off. However, the duck never assumes either of these poses at any time.

Sad Blob

While this pink blob does appear in the game, he never changes from his standard, happy expression. These graphics can only be found in the Japanese version.

Ending Character

This unused NPC appears alongside the graphics for "The End", which would imply that he was originally meant to appear in the ending sequence somewhere. It's possible he was a Kakariko villager, or potentially a Dark World resident who had returned to normal. He appears to be jumping, which would make sense if he was celebrating in the ending.

Enemy Sprites

Unused Soldier Helmet

An alternate helmet for a soldier enemy is present alongside the body graphics for the short blade-wielding regular Soldier, those met early in the game. The other helmets used in-game appear alongside their respective body graphics, so this implies that the weak, less=intelligent soldiers originally used this graphic for their helmets.

Why it was removed is unknown, but possibly because it looks more threatening than it should for such weak enemies, or because it is the only helmet that makes it clear there is a human body still within the armor and Nintendo didn't like the idea of Link hurting brainwashed humans (while the game implies that the soldiers were merely brainwashed, other material such as the comic and manga have suggested that the enemy soldiers are simply living armor, which might explain why they seem to outnumber the rest of Hyrule's population ten-to-one).

Dark World Bat

An odd, unused Dark World enemy. Some kind of bat thing. Its programming doesn't seem to exist in the game anymore, and its graphics can only be found in the Japanese versions of the game.

Apparently, it would have shot fireballs at Link.

Miscellaneous

Faces

A "mean" face and a "happy" face that can be found stored with the menu graphics.

Monologue Sprite

Sprite B8 in the sprite tables appears to be some sort of monologue-testing sprite. There appears to be some sort of menu you can use that chooses what it will say.

Unused Enemies

Cannon Trooper

This Hyrulean soldier with a portable cannon is never actually used in the game. He's fully coded and functional, and would fit quite well in areas like Agahnim's Tower.

Chris Houlihan room

The Chris Houlihan room is used as an error handler if you fall into a hole and the game cannot find a proper destination. It is a single cave room and contains a telepathic tile, as well as 225 Rupees. If you exit the cave, you will be warped to the front of Link's House, regardless of which world you were in before entering the room.

There is a bug in the game which can lead you to this room, related to screen transitions using the Pegasus Boots: go to the area to the left of Hyrule Castle and go up. After the transition has ended, drop a bomb in front of you and wait until it explodes. It will hurt you, and push you against the bottom of the screen. Now, charge up the Pegasus Boots, and turn to the bottom while charging up, so you will immediately move down to the next screen. Now, go to the hole at Hyrule Castle which leads to the secret passage and fall into it, and you will appear in the Chris Houlihan room.

Chris Houlihan is a kid who participated at a Nintendo Power event and received the honor to appear in a future Zelda game. Note that the GBA remake fixed this glitch, so there's no known way to get into this room, and even if you could there's no longer any mention of Chris.

Japanese: 「ここは、秘密の部屋だよ~ん。みんなにはないしょだよ~ん。」(Koko wa, himitsu no heya da yoon. Minna ni hanaisho da yoon. (This is a secret room~ It's a secret to everyone~))

English: My name is Chris Houlihan. This is my top secret room. Keep it between us, OK?

French : C'est ma pièce la plus secrète. Que cela reste entre nous, ok ?

German : Dies ist mein ganz geheimes Zimmer. Das bleibt aber unter uns, ja?

(Source: GlitterBerri (Japanese text translation))

Revisional Differences

This page or section needs more images. There's a whole lotta words here, but not enough pictures. Please fix this.

Title Screen

Japanese	American

The Japanese title screen has neither the sword nor the castle background seen in the American title screen. In the Japanese version, you can go straight to the File Select by pressing Start. In the American version, this option is only offered to you after using "Save & Quit" - if you start the game normally, you have to wait until the title screen actually displays the title before you can go to the File Select.

File Select

Japanese	American

The Japanese File Select has a stark black-and-white contrast not unlike that of Zelda 1. The American version uses some nice graphics there.

Japanese	American

File names in the Japanese versions can only be four characters long. In the American version, this limit has been generously raised to six.

Hylian Script

Japanese	American
File:ALttPHylianJap.png

In the Japanese version, the hieroglyphic font is much larger and more detailed than in America. All the text boxes were also made a little wider for the US version.

(Source: Killer Bob)

Eastern Palace

Japanese	American

This tile in the Eastern Palace was changed to remove a religious reference.

Ending

Some lines of the ending sequence were altered between releases:

Japanese	American
THE LOYAL PRIEST	THE LOYAL SAGE

This was changed to remove another religious reference.

Japanese	American
FINGER WEBS FOR SALE	FLIPPERS FOR SALE

A typical case of Engrish. Fixed up in the American version.

Japanese	American
OCARINA BOY PLAYS AGAIN	FLUTE BOY PLAYS AGAIN

Changed since the Ocarina is called Flute in the American version (why? we'll never know).

Japanese	American
GANNON'S TOWER	GANON'S TOWER

More Engrish fix-up in the Quest History.

Glitches in Japanese v1.0

• After getting the Pegasus Boots, by pressing Y + A at once you can dash while holding out an item. The item works like that, too: by using the Shovel, for example, you can dig an entire row of holes.
• In the Dark World, there's a ledge on Death Mountain that connects two parts of Turtle Rock. By using the Magic Mirror on the above ledge, you could warp on top of the wall, then jump down to the Turtle Rock ledge and skip a large portion of the dungeon. In later versions, you can still warp on top of the wall, but you won't be able to jump down.
• In any area with movable blocks where you can't use the Magic Mirror (like the watergate room in the Light World), push the movable block and try to use the Magic Mirror at the same time, and the block will disappear completely.

Glitches in Japanese v1.1

• In the Tower of Hera, on floor 3F, there's a hole at the very right that's next to the wall. Drop down the right side of it to end up on 2F, inside the wall. Jump off to the right and you're "under the floor", from where you can just run straight to the ending! The hole was moved to the left in later versions, to fix this bug.
• In the Dark World, killing yourself inside a shop or house will cause Link to reappear on the Pyramid of Power with no music. Switching the screens afterwards causes the Light World music to play, rather than the Dark World music.

(Source: darkeye14)

Game Boy Advance Port

The Game Boy Advance version came bundled with Four Swords. Achieving some goals in that game would unlock some extras:

• A sidequest involving the third lumberjack, requiring you to catch some special enemies with a pspecial nest item. A new sword move is unlocked this way.
• A new dungeon with rematches with previous bosses, and a new boss battle. It exploits some of the additions of the GBA version, like the ability to dive underwater, and has new enemies. It uses the eighth unused tileset.

The file select screen has been dummied, and replaced with another one common to the two games in this port. The engine was redone, and as such the game is far more stable: the Chris Houlihan room no longer bears this name and is considerably more difficult to access. The translation was corrected at some points too.

The Ice dungeon has been altered to remove a difficult puzzle involving pushing a block across several floors: this way, two rooms from the SNES version were made inaccessible, yet still coded.