Additional reporting by Andy Robinson.
A group of video game preservationists discovered a partial beta version of the Nintendo 64 “href =” https://www.videogameschronicle.com/platforms/nintendo/nintendo-64/ “> Nintendo 64 classic The Legend of Zelda (Series)” href = “https://www.videogameschronicle.com/games/the-legend-of-zelda-series/”> The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time.
O Forest of illusion A Twitter account said it discovered the remaining beta ROM in an old development cartridge it had purchased.
According to the group, the development cart mainly contained “href =” https://www.videogameschronicle.com/platforms/nintendo/ “> Nintendo racer F-Zero X from Nintendo, but it was discovered that it had been redesigned and originally housed an initial demo for the N64 Zelda.
About half of the original Ocarina of Time ROM – allegedly intended for Nintendo’s 1997 Spaceworld show – was found in the cart.
Forest of Illusion shared the content online on Tuesday and fans have already been able to retrieve a significant amount of new information about the pre-release version, including new areas, redesigned items and other elements that never made it into the final build.
The beta and unused items include early versions of Lens of Truth and Spiritual Stones, and a land mine that resembles Mario Kart’s blue shell or Bowser’s shell.
Also shown are all the powers of the bow, some of which did not reach the final cut, the grass that Link would use to summon Epona instead of using Ocarina as you did in the retail version of the game, in addition to several music note items.
Originally, Link held one of these notes above his head every time he used a song to match that piece of music.
Fans have also discovered the text for the many fitted cutlery medallions originally planned for the game.
Soul Medallion would allow players to transform themselves into the Navi fairy and fly through the environment. The Light medallion allowed players to use an attack similar to Light Arrows in the final game. Finally, the Medallion of Darkness allowed Link to prevent enemies from seeing him.
In addition, the beta files reveal significant differences in the structure of the game’s story. A section of the translated text suggests that originally, Princess Zelda would have made Link collect the Spiritual Stones while she researched how to enter the Temple of Time at the Royal Library.
The text also suggests that originally Nintendo intended to include hostel areas at Zora Domain and at Lon Lon Ranch, while Gerudo bandits – not monsters – roamed the Hyrule countryside at night.
Much of the text is labeled ‘Spaceworld 1997’, suggesting that the construction was meant to be displayed at the former Nintendo Japan Expo.
More videos on the new areas and other discoveries are being worked on, including a video summary of Hard4Games and a detailed Twitter topic by user Mr. Cheeze exploring the text included in the ROM.
It should be noted that Tuesday’s Zelda revelations are unrelated to the significant amount of classic Nintendo data leaked on the internet in 2020.
The so-called Nintendo ‘Gigaleak’ saw the first prototypes of games like Yoshi’s Island, Star Fox, Super Mario 64 and Zelda: Ocarina of Time shared online.
The data included another pre-release version of Ocarina of Time that was much closer to the final game, but that contained references to the 64DD. An Ocarina expansion was originally planned to launch on the failed add-on.
It was said that the full leak of the N64 includes some source data from the final versions of the games, including Super Mario 64, Mario Kart 64, Star Fox 64, Wave Race 64, Yoshi’s Story, Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time games and Majora’s Mask, in addition to Dr Mario 64 and Animal Crossing.
Nintendo has been subject to a significant number of data leaks in the past two years, including debugging ROMS for various SNES and N64 games, along with the source code, internal console emulators and more.
The leaks also contained internal documentation related to the Nintendo GameCube “href =” https://www.videogameschronicle.com/platforms/nintendo/nintendo-gamecube/ “> GameCube, Nintendo DS” href = “https: //www.videogameschronicle. com / platform / nintendo / ds / “> Nintendo DS, Nintendo 64 (and its 64DD add-on), Wii and iQue only in China, showing how systems work and the development processes behind them.
The data came from a server hack related to BroadOn, a company that Nintendo hired to develop Wii hardware and software.