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 hasunused areas. This game hashidden developer credits. This game hashidden development-related text. This game hasunused graphics. This game hasunused items. This game hasunused music. This game hasregional differences. This game has a prerelease article This game has a notes page This game has a Data Crystal page

The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Seasons is the sister game toOracle of Ages. Its unique gameplay involves having to change the seasons to solve puzzles.

Sub-Pages

Prerelease Info

Notes

Unused Text

Sound Test Text

Present at0x103C21 in the European ROM. No such text is present anywhere in the US or Japanese ROMs.

DMG SOUND TESTBGM:   /   SE :   /    CODEB:SE OFFÄ:BGM OFF

Version Number

At0x1C1C9 in the US and Japanese ROMs and0x1C22C in the European ROM is what appears to be a version number. This string saved at the beginning of each savefile (i.e. addresses0x0012 and0x1002 in SRAM for file 1 and its backup). It is validated for correctness whenever a file is loaded.Oracle of Ages has the same string except that it starts with "Z2".

Z11216-0

Localize Text

At0x1C04F in the European ROM is this string.

L_O_C_A_L_I_Z_E

This text is not in the US or Japanese ROMs. It's also saved to the beginning of the SRAM.

Unused Items

There are two items that 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.

• 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 gameOracle of Ages. While 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 to0A and01 (respectively) can partial coding for the item be restored. Link goes through an animation similar to that used when launching the Switch Hook inAges, but nothing else happens. This has no name or description in the inventory, either.

Of note is that some unused values inSeasons correspond to values used inAges, specifically04,0F, and11. Respectively inAges, these items are the Cane of Somaria, the Seed Shooter, and the Harp of Ages. Likewise,Ages has item values that are only used inSeasons. 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 inAges.

Almost Unseen Fool's Ore Effect

To do: Maybe get a video of this in action?

The Fool's Ore (Or Traded Ore) you temporarily get by trading Roc's Feather is actually a weapon! It deals a whopping6 points of damage, which is stronger than even the Master Sword, and that is more than enough to instantly defeat most standard enemies (It can even damage bosses that are vulnerable to the sword, too!)! This goes unseen by most players due to the fact that the only enemy that one can encounter for the duration of them having the Fool's Ore in their inventory is the Fire Snake, which can only be dug up by their shovel at this point. However, Fire Snakes have 5 HP, which is more than enough for the Fool's Ore to one shot it! Gameshark code011E91C6 will set the bottom-right slot of your inventory to the Fool's Ore so you can try this on more enemies and bosses. Keep in mind that obtaining Roc's Feather (if you don't have it already) or Roc's Cape will remove the Fool's Ore from your inventory, so you will have to use the Gameshark code again to re-obtain it.

Unused Rooms

By using a program calledZOLE, 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 you to Impa's Refuge. The chest contains one rupee. Due to their similarities and placement within the game itself, it is likely that8C and8D 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 rock instead of grass. Sprite sets are shared by all four variations in most cases.

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.

To do: Upload the other screen.

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.

ID07

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

ID25

A sneaky, jazzy-sounding song in a similar style to themes associated with Subrosia. Also sounds similar to thetheme of the Mogmas fromThe 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 address0x10B2:

000010B2    ldi a,[hl]    ;Load A with [HL], Increment HL000010B3    ld e,a        ;Load E With A000010B4    inc a        ;Increment A000010B5  jr z,10C4    ;Jump Relative (If Zero) to 10C4 <<----------- This jump causes the default item(one rupee) to appear000010B7    ldi a,[hl]    ;Load A with [HL], Increment HL000010B8    cp b        ;Test A - B000010B9  jr z,10BF    ;Jump Relative (If Zero) to 10BF <<----------- This jump causes a defined item to appear000010BB    inc hl        ;Increment HL000010BC    inc hl        ;Increment HL000010BD  jr 10B2        ;Jump Relative To 10B2000010BF    ld b,[hl]    ;Load B With [HL]000010C0    inc hl        ;Increment HL000010C1    ld c,[hl]    ;Load C With [HL]000010C2  jr 10C7        ;Jump Relative To 10C7000010C4ld bc,$2800    ;Load BC with $2800 <---------- This is the default value for undefined chests000010C7    pop af        ;Pop AF000010C8  ld [$FF97],a    ;Load [$FF97] With A000010CAld [$2222],a    ;Load [$2222] With A000010CD    ret        ;Return

Chest data starts at0x054F7C and ends at0x055124, 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.

To do: Most (if not all) of the Ages exclusive Link sprites are in Seasons (and vice versa)! Get those up there!

28 through2B,54 through57,F4 throughFF: Sprites of Link swimming with the Mermaid Suit, which only appears inAges.

E0 toE3: Link playing the Harp of Ages. You obviously can't get the Harp of Ages in this game, so these go unused as well.

Farore

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

Evil Fairy

These sprites were found in the game's compressed graphics. They look somewhat like evil versions of a fairy (both the "small" and "great" versions).

Enemy ID57 has some residual data which references these graphics. However, there is no longer any code associated with this enemy. It would have the following properties:

• Palette: Blue
• Damage to Link: 4 (1 heart)
• Health: 20 (10 slashes to kill with wooden sword)

Background Tiles

This tile is used in the game as part of the background while in Holodrum, and while a blue Subrosia portal is always on top obscuring it, can briefly (albeit in a distorted form) be seen during the wavy warping animation.

A statue of a Darknut loaded with cave tilesets, possibly a leftover fromThe 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 uppercase Ns will cause Link's name to be replaced by placeholder characters which are otherwise unseen.

Debug Graphics

At0x104000 in the European ROM are some graphics that appear to be for a debug mode. Interestingly, there's a 1999 credit for Capcom, indicating these graphics are quite an old leftover. Similar-looking graphics can also be found in the Game Boy Color version ofMagical Tetris Challenge. These graphics are not in the US or Japanese ROMs.

Regional Differences

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

Presentation Screen

The Japanese version 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.

Title Screen

Japan	US/Europe

Ending Screen

The message saying that the adventure continues inOracle 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.

Japan	US/Europe

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.

Dancing Dragon Dungeon

The first mine cart switch was repositioned slightly in the international versions.

Text Changes

Some changes were made to the English text in the European release. Typos were fixed, hints were added, and Santa was eliminated. There are also numerous minor changes to text coloration and indentation which are not listed below.

Virtual Console / NSO 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' lack of a Game Link Cable.

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• Games with unused areas
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• To do
• Legend of Zelda series