The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Seasons
Also known as: Zelda no Densetsu: Fushigi no Kinomi: Daichi no Shou (JP) Developers: Flagship, Capcom Publisher: Nintendo Platform: Game Boy Color Released in JP: February 27, 2001 Released in US: May 14, 2001 Released in EU: October 5, 2001 This game has unused areas. This game has unused graphics. This game has unused items. This game has unused music. This game has regional differences. This game has a prerelease article

To do: more regional difference. source

The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Seasons is a game in the Zelda franchise, and sister game to The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Ages. Its unique gameplay involved having to change the seasons to solve puzzles.

Unused Items

There are two items cannot be obtained during normal gameplay. By changing RAM addresses $C681 (A button) or $C680 (B button) to the following values, these items can be obtained.

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  02: Pressing the assigned button punches. This has no icon in the HUD or inventory, and also lacks a name and description. There are points in normal gameplay where Link can punch, such as when you fight Blaino in his Gym, or if you acquire a Ring with that effect, but none of those situations seem to map this item to the A or B buttons.

• 0A: The Long Hook (or L-2 Switch Hook), which only appears in sister game Oracle of Ages. Even though this item can be mapped to either the A or B buttons, nothing will happen when the button is pressed. Only by changing RAM addresses $D202 and $D203 to 0A and 01 (respectively) can partial coding for the item be restored. Link goes through an animation similar to that used when launching the Switch Hook in Ages, but nothing else happens. This has no name or description in the inventory either.

Of note is that some unused values in Seasons correspond to values used in Ages, specifically 04, 0F, and 11. Respectively in Ages, these items are the Cane of Somaria, the Seed Shooter, and the Harp of Ages. Likewise, Ages has item values that are only used in Seasons. These unused items appear to be glitched and do nothing when mapped to the A or B buttons; even when the game is forced to use these items through hacking, they behave nothing like they do in Ages.

Unused Rooms

By using a program called ZOLE, several unused rooms can be found, some of which seem to indicate that some tilesets were changed or shuffled around at some point in development.

Subrosia 81: Just an empty room. Exiting leads to a cave entrance in Holodrum Plain.

Subrosia 8C: A thin room with two staircases and a non-functional exit on the bottom. Taking either staircase leads to outside Impa's Refuge.

Subrosia 8D: This room has three staircases and another non-functional exit. As before, all staircases lead take you to Impa's Refuge. The chest contains one rupee. Due to their similarities and placement within the game itself, it is likely that 8C and 8D were going to be connected by the staircases.

Subrosia 90: A simple house map with no exit.

Subrosia 9A: A room with an old man in it. The pot in the left corner is sitting on a switch. When the pot is lifted or broken, the "secret revealed" sound is played, but nothing actually appears to happen as the switch is already pressed. The old man in the room says "Shh! Don't tell!" and gives you some money when you talk to him, like several other old men in the game. The stairs lead to 02 on the overworld map, in Tarm Ruins. Since leaving the room and returning down the stairs leads to the standard old man room, it's possible that this is an earlier version of the "old man" rooms.

Subrosia A2: A room with a small lava pit and nothing else. The exit leads to a screen in Subrosia Village, although with a slightly corrupted tileset.

Subrosia AE: A strange room with another non-working exit. The chest in the middle contains the "default" treasure of one rupee. Changing the room's area ID to 49 fixes the broken tileset (see right).

Unmapped(1) EC: Just a lot of water. The stairs lead to outside Impa's Refuge.

Unmapped(2) CD: A room with a chest and green lava, which can be restored to its proper palette by switching the area ID to 80 (see right). The chest has one rupee (again), and the stairs lead to outside Impa's Refuge (again).

Unmapped(2) CE: Changing this room's area ID to 78 reveals it to be some kind of school or study with many tables and chairs. The stairs lead to, yep, Impa's Refuge again.

Maku Tree: Older versions of the Maku Tree's canopy.

Duplicate Rooms: There are several duplicates of used rooms, mainly from Horon Village, that are never used or called upon by the game.

Overworld Placeholder Screens

Accessing certain screens in a season where they cannot normally be reached (such as Goron Mountain in any season but Winter) leads to these filler screens, varying based on the appropriate season. The base ground differs depending on the screen; for example, Onox's Castle has instead of grass. Sprite sets are shared by all four variations in most cases.

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  Spring (Haru)
  

  
  

  
  


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  Summer (Natsu)
  

  
  

  
  


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  Autumn (Aki)
  

  
  

  
  

However, there are certain screens which do not use these placeholders and are instead fully mapped out. Most are exactly the same (such as Samasa Desert, or the screen where the Noble/Master Sword is obtained in the Lost Woods), but there are two specific screens right next to Onox's Castle that are mapped out for both Summer and Autumn, despite screens right next to them using the above fillers.

Unused Music

These two tracks are never heard in normal gameplay. Game Genie code ??1-56B-A2E will play the selected song at the file select menu.

ID 07

A rather dramatic tune, possibly an unused character or dungeon theme.

ID 25

A sneaky, jazzy-sounding song in a similar style to themes associated with Subrosia. Also sounds similar to the theme of the Mogmas from The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword.

Unused Treasure Chest Default

Within the game's code, there is an unused "default" chest item consisting of 1 green rupee, which would be used in case a particular chest had an undefined item to prevent the game from crashing or glitching out. This is seen in many unused rooms. The loop of code responsible for this can be found starting at address 0x10B2:

000010B2	    	ldi a,[hl]    ;Load A with [HL], Increment HL

000010B3	    	ld e,a        ;Load E With A

000010B4	    	inc a        ;Increment A

000010B5	  	jr z,10C4    ;Jump Relative (If Zero) to 10C4 <<----------- This jump causes the default item(one rupee) to appear

000010B7	    	ldi a,[hl]    ;Load A with [HL], Increment HL

000010B8	    	cp b        ;Test A - B

000010B9	  	jr z,10BF    ;Jump Relative (If Zero) to 10BF <<----------- This jump causes a defined item to appear

000010BB	    	inc hl        ;Increment HL

000010BC	    	inc hl        ;Increment HL

000010BD	  	jr 10B2        ;Jump Relative To 10B2



000010BF	    	ld b,[hl]    ;Load B With [HL]

000010C0	    	inc hl        ;Increment HL

000010C1	    	ld c,[hl]    ;Load C With [HL]

000010C2	  	jr 10C7        ;Jump Relative To 10C7



000010C4		ld bc,$2800    ;Load BC with $2800 <---------- This is the default value for undefined chests

000010C7	    	pop af        ;Pop AF

000010C8	  	ld [$FF97],a    ;Load [$FF97] With A

000010CA		ld [$2222],a    ;Load [$2222] With A

000010CD	    	ret        ;Return

Chest data starts at 0x054F7C and ends at 0x055124, and is defined in the format of xxyy zzzz where xx is the position to place the "open chest" graphic once the chest is opened. If the game is searching for chest data and comes across the hex code FFyy zzzz, it uses the default item. There are a few different sections within the chest data corresponding to the overworld, Subrosia and Dungeons; the FFyy zzzz code appears several times to mark the end of these sections.

Unused Graphics

Sprites

Link

Poking around RAM address $D00B and typing in the following values, some unused Link sprites have been discovered.

28 through 2B, 54 through 57, F4 through FF: Sprites of Link swimming with the Mermaid Suit, which only appears in Ages.

E0 to E3: Link playing the Harp of Ages. You obviously can't get the Harp of Ages in this game, so these go unused as well.

Others

While Farore does appear in the game inside the Maku Tree, she stands behind a counter and only faces forward. As such, the sprites of her facing left, right, and backwards are not used.

Background Tiles

This tile is used in the game as part of the background while in Holodrum, but a blue Subrosia portal is always on top of it, so it is never seen in-game.

A statue of a Darknut loaded with cave tilesets, possibly a leftover from The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening. Interestingly, in certain other tilesets, such as the ones used in dungeons, these tiles are replaced by inactive Armos tiles.

The eye statues found at dungeon entrances drawn in a side-view perspective. Obviously these would have been used in the sidescrolling areas of dungeons.

Characters

In the US version only, when creating a new file using the secrets option, entering a password that contains all upper case Ns will cause Link's name to be replaced by placeholder characters which are otherwise unseen.

Regional Differences

To do: Add the season graphics present in the Japanese version.

There are some minor differences between the different versions of the game.

Presentation Screen

The Japanese version of the game has a "presentation screen" displayed before the Nintendo and Capcom logos. It notably refers to the game by its English title. This screen does not appear in any other version of the game.

Ending Screen

The message saying that the adventure continues in Oracle of Ages does not exist in the Japanese version.

Season Icons

The Japanese version uses the kanji of the seasons 冬 (fuyu), 春 (haru), 夏 (natsu), and 秋 (aki) for winter, spring, summer, and autumn respectively. These designs were changed in the English Release.

Facade glitch

In the Japanese version, in Snake's Remains Facade can be damaged before he appears by just throwing bombs in the center of the room. This was fixed in the overseas releases.

Virtual Console Differences

Transitioning

A fade to white now occurs before entering an "interior" map (houses, caves, or dungeons), whereas previously the game would cut straight from the outside map to the wipe-in revealing the interior. The reason for this change is unknown.

Unobtainable Rings

• (Unknown) Ring (GBA Nature Ring)


• (Unknown) Ring (GBA Time Ring)


• GBA Nature Ring


• GBA Time Ring

Because the code to denote the player as using the Game Boy Advance is never activated, these rings cannot be obtained through normal means. However, the last two rings are obtainable with a modified ring secret.

Advance Shop

The Advance Shop in Horon Village still exists, but since the code to denote the player as using a Game Boy Advance is never activated (for obvious reasons), it is rendered inaccessible.

Blue Snake's removed script

The Blue Snake's script was removed due to the 3DS's lack of a Game Link Cable.