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 Satellaview 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) The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords.

To do: Investigate this allegedly unused (and very loud) sound. Might be a crash handler.

Subpages

Game Boy Advance Version The changes made for the portable port.

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. The 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 displayed.

Full Restore/Equipment Upgrade

Use 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 A 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 warp straight to the Triforce chamber after the fight against Ganon. Works for three save slots and with any name.

Frame Advance

Use PAR code 00803A00. Press L on Controller 1 to freeze the game; while frozen, press R to advance one frame and 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 was eventually used in the GBA port for the Palace of the Four Sword, 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.

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 only 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.

Magical Clock

An unused stopwatch object! This would presumably work like the Magical Clock 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 may have been removed because the Quake Medallion performs a similar effect.

Sword Text

Japanese text for "ken/tsurugi", which means "sword", 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 be added to the inventory in all versions of the game using PAR code 7EF35301 and 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.

In all versions, the item acts exactly like the Magic Mirror when used.

1/4 Magic Meter

Normally, the player can only obtain an upgrade that reduces Magic Meter consumption by half (indicated by a 1/2 symbol on the Magic Meter). Doing so causes the VRAM byte located at 7EF37B to change from 00 to 01. However, setting the byte to 02 instead causes the Magic Meter to drain at one-quarter its usual rate instead. There doesn't appear to be a 1/4 graphic for the Magic Meter in the game and the Meter still displays 1/2, but all items - with the exception of the Lamp and the Magic Cape, for some reason - benefit from this upgrade.

Setting the byte to most other values, however, causes the Magic Meter to either stop working correctly or use more magic for certain items.

This feature has been implemented in a few different hacks of both A Link to the Past and Inishie no Sekiban.

Graphical Effects

Kholdstare's Shell "Melting"

Download Kholdstare Melting Shell Restoration Patch (U) File: Kholdstare_shell.ips (28 KB) (info) Current version: 1.0

A close inspection of Kholdstare's logic indicates that its shell was intended to gradually fade out after being defeated with fire-based weapons. Normally, it just abruptly disappears several frames after being destroyed. The sudden disappearance of the shell is not aesthetically pleasing, so it's not surprising that this transitioning effect was implemented. Unfortunately, a coding bug accidentally disabled the effect. A fairly simple patch has been created to restore this effect, a link to which can be found above.

As for an explanation of how it was accidentally disabled, it turns out that the palette that was supposed to be manipulated to achieve the fadeout was not correctly invoked. Instead, a neighboring palette was selected for fading. Regrettably, there were no graphics visible in that scene that also used the palette being faded. Thus, this bug understandably slipped through play-testing due to a lack of obvious side effects, visual or otherwise. This bug is known to be present in all Super Famicom and SNES releases of the game, with the shell's fade effect restored in the GBA port.

NPC Sprites

Duck Sprites

The duck has an additional frame of flying animation that is only used in the GBA version. While the latter sprite is used, it only appears extremely briefly after Link lands from a flight.

Bully's Friend

While the bully's friend 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 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

Alternate palettes.

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's the only helmet that makes it clear there's 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 suggest 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 or big-armed thing with flapping or throwing frames. Its programming doesn't seem to exist in the game anymore, and its graphics are only present in the Japanese versions of the game.

Apparently, it would have shot (thrown?) fireballs at Link.

Miscellaneous

Faces

A "mean" face and a "happy" face that are stored with the menu graphics.

Bomb Shop Sign Women

Link and the sprite with index 0x3D have had a strained relationship over the years. It normally manifests as a lady in a white headscarf pacing back and forth in front of her house in Kakariko Village. If Link gets too close, she'll call out for soldiers to come arrest him and bolt inside her home, locking the door.

If this same sprite is spawned indoors, however, she's a different woman altogether - in fact, she's downright weird. This sprite will turn to face the player like many other NPCs in the game, but the only thing she seems to want to talk about is that the Bomb Shop is somewhere west of Link's current position. It's possible that the message index used for the Bomb Shop sign once held entirely different text.

The red-haired woman (sprite index 0x34) in the village, who also spends her time looking for people to narc on, behaves identically to the scarved woman when placed indoors. As the scarved woman retains her appearance indoors, so too does the red-haired woman. This is due to the fact that that these two sprites share the same logic, except for the subroutines called to render them to the screen.

Dialogue Tester Sprite

The sprite entity with index 0xB8 appears to be a leftover debug feature for testing the game's dialogue messages. While it was previously thought that the sprite had some sort of menu for selecting the next message to be displayed, this is a misconception due to the fact that the templates for some of the game menus are found at some of the lowest message indices. Without other logic driving the sequencing of those menu templates, they have no effect.

The sprite initializes its message index to 0x0000 and will increment this index after each message is displayed, which also causes its physical orientation to cycle to another cardinal direction. Each message is triggered automatically when the player gets close enough to the sprite, so the A button is not used to interact in this situation. This effectively prevents the player from passing through the sprite.

There is no bounds checking performed on the message index. Therefore, if the player reads until all of the valid message indices are exhausted, the game will crash, as the next message index will reference data that is not valid for the dialogue system.

When spawned in most indoor rooms, the sprite doesn't look properly constructed. It was later discovered that the Priest (Sage in the US version) sprite and the dialogue tester call the same subroutine to be drawn to the screen. The color of the sprite's garb and skin tone is different from that of the Priest, however.

• 
  

  

  
  

  
  

  The dialogue tester as it appears in a room without the proper graphics configuration.
  

  
  

  
  


• 
  

  

  
  

  
  

  The dialogue tester shown in a room with a compatible graphics configuration.
  

  
  

  
  

Unused Enemies

Cannon Trooper

A Hyrulean soldier with a portable cannon is fully coded and functional, and would fit quite well in areas like Agahnim's Tower.

Unused Text

あぶない！

深みとゾーラに注意

           DANGER!

Beware of deep water and Zora!

Intended for a sign right before you enter Zora's Domain.

Unused Rooms

There are two unused rooms in the middle of the tiled objects data. In all versions of the game, they can be found at the address 0x0FAD27. The palettes and block set on the screenshot are only there as a preview taken with a room editor, as these rooms do not contain any data regarding that.

Those rooms can't be loaded normally in-game, but you can use the following cheats to start the game in one of them.

1F830C27 1F830DAD 1F830E1F

1F830CF1 1F830DAD 1F830E1F

Chris Houlihan Room

The Chris Houlihan room (ID 82) 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, with the telepathic tile being a message from Chris (the only such tile that isn't a message from Sahasrahla or Zelda).

Regional Differences

Japan	US	Europe

The Japanese title screen has neither the sword nor the castle background seen in the English title screens. The European title screen replaced the ® with a ™. In the Japanese and European versions, you can go straight to the File Select by pressing Start. In the US 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.

Japanese	English

The blue soldiers have spears in the Japanese prologue, which were most likely replaced with swords in the English prologue because that soldier type isn't actually used during gameplay. That said, the fact they're used in the prologue suggests that type was present during gameplay at one point in development.

Japanese	English

The Japanese File Select has a stark black-and-white contrast not unlike that of the first The Legend of Zelda. The English version uses some nice graphics instead.

Japanese	English

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

Japan	US	Europe

The arrow marks on the signs were altered between versions. The text boxes were also slightly expanded for the English versions.

Japan	US	Europe

The cursor was tweaked between versions as well. The Japanese release was by far the largest, whilst the US version is slightly smaller than the EU release.

Japanese	English

In the Japanese version, the Hylian script's hieroglyphic font is much larger and more detailed than in the English version.

Japanese	English

This tile in the Eastern Temple (Palace) was changed from a Star of David to a generic symbol due to Nintendo of America's policies on religious imagery.

US	Europe

The ellipsis character was for some reason changed into an interpunct character in the European version.

Japanese	English
おたずね者 "File Name" ゼルダ姫を城よりさらった犯人 みつけたら大声でしらせよ！	WANTED! This is the criminal who kidnapped Zelda. Call a soldier if you see him!

In the Japanese version, the wanted signs of Link in Kakariko Village display your file name next to the portrait.

Some lines of the ending sequence were altered between releases:

Japanese	English

Another religious reference was removed; Priest was replaced with Sage.

Japanese	English

A typical case of Engrish being fixed up in the English version, although they forgot to re-center the text when doing so (this can be seen in the other text revisions as well, but not as clearly as in this example).

Japanese	English

Changed since the Ocarina is called a Flute in the English version (Why? We'll never know).

An extra script credit for the localization effort was added to the English version.

Japanese	English

The spelling of Ganon's name was changed in the Quest History to be consistent with the rest of the localization.

Also, all text in the game was drawn a few pixels higher in frame in the English version to allow space for the lowercase characters. As a result of this, the Quest History stats came out looking a little bit awkward - the regular text isn't correctly aligned with the smaller secondary text that is otherwise only present in the ending of the game.

• In the English version, the fortune tellers received additional dialogue. They have this to say if you decline their offer: "It is indeed a poor man who is not interested in his future... I'll be waiting for your return." In the Japanese version, there's no equivalent dialogue present.


• In the Japanese version, the messages from the maidens you rescue differ from the regular dialogue text in the game: each paragraph gets deleted before the next one appears, rather than scrolling. In the English version, this style is only present in the message the spirit of the Triforce gives you.


• The text speed is a lot faster in several places in the Japanese version, such as in the prologue.

English	German	French

The French and German localizations, including the limited Canadian French release, use a slightly different dialogue font than the English version; the most notable differences are the serifed "i", the curvier "s", and the more open "a". Additionally, the French version, but not the German version, uses a non-italic font for the status display, similar to that used in all GBA versions of the game.

Revisional Differences

To do: Several more glitches. See the agdq2016 run of this game for reference.

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, which makes the digging minigame in the Dark World really easy.


• 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.

• By jumping into the water next to a screen boundary, if you fall into the water and trigger the screen transition at the same time Link will start swimming in deep and shallow water even if you don't have the Flippers.


• Attempting to dash and release a charged up spin attack at the exact same time turns Link into a glitched state. If in this state you step on a ladder/stairway and then step off again, Link will gain ludicrous speed and be able to clip through some ledges and walls.


• It's possible to interrupt the animation of Link falling down a hole by getting grabbed by a Wallmaster or having a mortal blow delivered (i. e. bomb explosion). Performing the latter when you have a bottled Fairy puts Link in a glitched state (?).


• Using a potion and triggering a screen/room transition at the same time causes a race condition where two functions write to the same variable, typically corrupting the game's memory. The effects depend on where you are and what kind of potion you use:
  
  
  
  • Doing this in the overworld with a Blue Potion opens the Flute menu, even if you don't have the Flute and even in the Dark World.
  
  
  • Attempting the same in a dungeon causes some massive screen corruption and glitches the room transition, although the game is still (sort of) playable.
  
  
  
  

Glitches in Japanese v1.0 and v1.1

• In the Tower of Hera, there's a hole at the very right side of 3F 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, fixing 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.

• If you make a regular slash with your sword against bombable walls, you'll hear the same sound effect as when you cut bushes. This of course didn't make much sense and was corrected in v1.2. (Not to be confused with the "hollow" sound effect you get when you "thrust" your sword against those same walls, which was already in place.) Oddly, this "feature" was reinstated in the Satellaview pseudo-sequel.


• It is possible to beat Ganon without the Silver Arrows, simply by slashing him while he's warping away. While this is still possible in later versions, the input window to deal damage to Ganon in this way was reduced to two frames, making this practically impossible outside of tool-assisted speedruns.

Virtual Console

In the Virtual Console releases, all flashing effects (such as those on the title screen, or caused by Agahnim's lightning attack or the Bombos Medallion) are toned down severely.