Tricks/Glitches/Timesavers topic

[Ahamplan]

Lol yuga being called medium would have been pretty funny :p, but yeah I get the theory stuff and I wish you the best of luck , remember to check that yuganon rng for me

[KingOfHeart]

So, I'm guessing you can change your X,y,z location for a save file?
Which would allow you to save with a big bomb, and then change locations.
Or am I guessing wrong?

[Myria]

So, I'm guessing you can change your X,y,z location for a save file?
Which would allow you to save with a big bomb, and then change locations.
Or am I guessing wrong?

Sadly, the Big Bomb following you is not something that saves.  For that, I'd have more luck replacing one of the NPCs in the Village of Outcasts with the Big Bomb, or changing executable to think that the string for the cult preacher the map data is asking to place is the Big Bomb instead.  I can modify the game.

Changing save files isn't something I haven't fully accomplished yet, but I've definitely begun to map out that data.  It might actually be easier for me to modify the game's executable to think that a save file contained different data than it actually does.  The 3DS hardware-based encryption/MAC is a pain, and nobody's written tools to fix the MAC yet.  (MAC = a type of cryptographically-secure checksum, similar in use to a cryptographic hash.)

Save files actually don't store your X/Y/Z at all - they store which weathervane you saved at.  You'll notice that if you save at the side of a weathervane, you'll still end up loading at a canonical location in front of it regardless of where you saved.  This means that save file hacking cannot be used for arbitrary teleportation.

However, there are weathervanes in Lorule =^-^=  What I'd like to do is play through until I get the Master Sword, but don't go to Hyrule Castle Tower.  At that point, save the game at Karariko Village, then hack my save to be as if I'd saved at Village of Outcasts instead.  From there, I could see what happens if I do various things.  I could answer some current unknowns:

1. Are the portals present in Lorule even if you haven't gone through Hyrule Castle Tower?
2. If they are, what happens if you go through the portals, particularly as it relates to the Hyrule side?
3. What happens if you get near the Lorule Blacksmith's house like this?  My current educated guess is that the message you get when you exit that house is actually the master even that triggers the opening of the portals.  It'd be interesting to see what happens if you approach like this without having gone through Hyrule Castle Tower, beating Yuga 2, or seeing the creation of Yuganon (the cutscene internally named "Demo 4").
4. If you do see Hilda's message, and her message affects the world, what happens if you then go through Hyrule Castle Tower?  As I've been theorizing for a while, it's possible that instead of seeing "Demo 4", you'd fight Yuganon and complete the game.

By the way, the "Documenting" thread on this subforum has a link to a spreadsheet I've been making with what I've determined so far about the save file format.  There are a lot of event bits in this game, but the save files aren't very big - 0x1604 bytes each.  Mario Paint for the SNES had almost twice as much save data as this game (0x8000 bytes, compared to 0x440C).

Melissa

[KingOfHeart]

That sounds cool.
If you can find a way to change your location with the big bomb, you could find out if the Bomb Guy would stop you from any X,Y,Z or not.
Let's pretend we found a way to walk through trees, will he stop you at all? (Not much point though if you couldn't skip the thief dungeon)

[Myria]

That sounds cool.
If you can find a way to change your location with the big bomb, you could find out if the Bomb Guy would stop you from any X,Y,Z or not.
Let's pretend we found a way to walk through trees, will he stop you at all? (Not much point though if you couldn't skip the thief dungeon)

If we could clip into the lone tree to the left of the Lorule Castle bridge, we could use the Tornado Rod to get on top of it, then drop from it onto the nearby fence.  Once on the fence, we could get the Big Bomb to follow us again, then head west-by-southwest toward the Lorule Blacksmith screen transition.  At a very specific spot, dash northwest into the void.  Supposedly, the Big Bomb will follow Link enough to clip the bomb into the next screen, but the bomb will also no longer be following Link.  Go west to the Blacksmith's house area, and we could get the Big Bomb to follow us again.  Since we just bypassed the game's check for the Big Bomb, we should then be free to walk it into the Village of Outcasts.  Once there, we have a known exploit to break into any locked building using the Big Bomb.

That was the theory we had earlier in this thread.

[KingOfHeart]

Yes, and if someone could use hacks to put themselves on the ledge, we'll get a faster answer on if we should continue to try or not.

[Myria]

Yes, and if someone could use hacks to put themselves on the ledge, we'll get a faster answer on if we should continue to try or not.

And there is where I come in. =^-^=

[Weegeechan]

Well, just to add some activity to this place, I found some useless stuff a while ago but I might as well share it here.

I found some kind of fire storage that might only be possible with the Nice Fire Rod.



If you're in a big enough area, you can light it up as if there was fire everywhere. The game will store things that are off screen and will activate again once you return to them within a certain range.

So what I did was, shoot some fire, dash away in a different direction. Shoot fire again, then dash in a direction away from both etc. Eventually, the area will light up as if fire was everywhere. It kind of explains the lighting glitch on top of the castle gate.

[KingOfHeart]

If there are enemies off screen, and walk into the area, will they get hurt/die?

[Weegeechan]

I haven't tested it on any enemies so I'm not sure.

Btw, I was thinking about the Lorule gate clip and how it should actually have a use when I thought up an interesting theory. A theory that could skip Thieves' if it works.

Has anyone ever tried to see if there is a loading zone having beaten all the dungeons but Thieves'? Having the Triforce of Courage clearly isn't the reason the loading zone appears, so what is? The obvious answer is having all the paintings right? Well I got a crazy idea that it might not be. Of all the dungeons, Thieves' is the only one that needs to be beaten before another because the Sand Rod is unlocked through it. Because of this, we can skip the ToC because it actually becomes glitched when doing Thieves' last. So what if the loading zone actually appears after beating all the dungeons but Thieves'!

This could work because the game obviously thinks Thieves' needs to be beaten to have the Desert Palace portrait right? What I'm thinking is, having all the portraits might only be required to actually open the gate and that the loading zone might be there before getting the Thieves' portrait!  

Would anyone be willing to test this? If so, that would be awesome (Sorry if this has been tested before, but I have never heard this idea yet)

[Roadagain]

That sounds hilariously stupid even on this game's standards.

The thing is tho, that it's fairly similar to Thieves' Portrait door. It's likely the loading zone appears after the cutscene takes you inside there for the first time.

It's still worth a shot tho.

[Weegeechan]

Lol, it's just something I came up with last night. It most likely won't work but I think at this point, anything should be tested to find a skip for Thieves' xD

[Naxanria]

Anything goes for skipping thieves xD

[Myria]

I actually think that Lorule Castle always has the entrance, we just can't clip through it at a proper angle or height to trigger it.  But that would be silly if I'm wrong and you're right about that, a really stupid way to skip Thieves' Hideout =^-^=

I have been so ridiculously busy at work that I generally get home at midnight Monday through Friday, so you can imagine how that affects what I do at home.  This is what has stalled all attempts at hacking this game further.  That, and failure to see someone named cell9 online EFnet in the last two weeks.  He has a toolkit that would be extremely helpful for me hacking this game's save files.

Some of my ideas are so simple but are just missing one little thing to trigger them.  Skipping Thieves' Town via the Bomb Flower ought to be possible if we could clip into the tree on the left side of the Lorule Castle bridge.  From there, Tornado Rod to get on top of the tree.  From the top of that tree, dash-slide to get onto the fence nearby.  Before getting onto the tree, you can leave the Bomb Flower by the fence.  Once on the fence, walk over to the Bomb Flower and get it to follow you.

At a very particular location of the fence leading westward toward the Lorule blacksmith, dash slide northwest off the cliff.  The Bomb Flower will follow you onto the abyss, but not into the abyss.  This will get the Bomb Flower into a position that is both on this screen and accessible from the blacksmith's screen.  Go to the blacksmith's screen--possible since the bomb isn't following you--and make it follow you.  Very carefully get past or kill the monsters and go to the Village of Outcasts.  Execute the known exploit to break into buildings using the Bomb Flower, and free sage for you.

The missing part of all that: just clipping into that tree.  The tree has no walls touching it.  The bushes around it are slightly too far way to be useful for clipping bugs.  The tree being round means that a Hinox can't force you to clip into the tree.  Getting onto the fence without using the tree either directly or by jumping off from the Lorule Bridge's entryway arch would be acceptable, but there don't seem to be ways of accomplishing these things either.

It's like the game conspires against my ideas sometimes.  So far, I haven't contributed anything to this community >.<

Melissa

[Kamineko]

https://miiverse.nintendo.net/posts/AYQHAAABAACNUKEvO0DdTQ

I was messing around and found out this neat trick. You can use the tornado rod, instead of merging/unmerging, saving about a second.