This is a sub-page of Development:The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past.

Earlier Track Versions

One of the French localization directories has a secret! Early music was discovered in a file called SFC\ソースデータ\ゼルダの伝説神々のトライフォース\フラソス_PAL\Fra_asm1\zldsound0.lstN.

Prior versions of some of Koji Kondo's most famous works lies therein, but it can't be listened to without expending some effort. Why? Each song has a table containing offsets to where each sequence of the song begins, but for some reason the tables in this file match the offsets of sequences in the final game rather than in this file. Restoring early music will require manually updating each of these table offsets, by figuring out where different sequences of each song begin and end. The first person to successfully restore these will be awarded Koji Kondo's Medal of Determination™.

To do: Fully restore all sequences. Below only has the first part of the early main melody working, albeit with some issues (the sporadic chime noises). The opening prelude sampled here is using the final sequence rather than the earlier one.

Kakariko Village#

This song has been remixed several times throughout the series, and this melody contains more notes than the final. Below only has the first portion restored.

To listen to this partially-restored main melody in-game, copy the bytes between 0xA67B - 0xA7AB from zldsound0.lstN and paste at 0xD385B in the initial USA release of A Link to the Past. Fix the table pointing to this sequence by pasting the following at 0xD37ED in the gameː "74E986E9A5E9C4C9D4".

Internal Track Names

Another file unique to the French subdirectory called フラソス_PAL\Fra_asm\zld.asm outlines how the sound program works, and contains some internal track names for the game's music tracks. It's missing a few tracks compared to the final game, suggesting that the data within predates release.

Near the end of the file, a programming "Include" list has the internal track names, with each named as a .dat file. The files named there follow:

NOTE: Since this is a development resource, in order to show relationships between files and names and such, these track titles have been translated directly from the Japanese, rather that using the inaccurate English localizations. The "Front" side is what English speakers know as the "Light" side, and the "Reverse" or "Back" side is what English speakers know as the "Dark" side.

Why some song files with names identifying them as at least earlier versions of songs present in the final game (such as the boss music) are commented out in the "Include" list within this list is not fully certain. In the case of ura.dat, which is most likely the Dark World Overworld theme, it appears to be because newura1.dat was made, and this was likely a song that was different enough it had to be identified as such compared to the older version.

As for the other commented out song files, given フラソス_PAL\Fra_asm\zld.asm is not in other source directories (at least not under that name), it may be a remnant of an earlier stage in the development of the music. This would be a time when the tracks were still being worked on, and perhaps the other commented out tracks were not yet finished at this time or were going to be replaced with new iterations like ura.dat was.

In this scenario, it could be that this earlier development file was mistakenly placed in this directory even though it was not actually needed to build the French PAL version of the game, and the finalized music data used to build the game exists elsewhere, such as in some of the many files with "zldsound" in the title.

Early BGM Assignments

The file zel_isub.asm contains two versions of a section of data that assigns songs to a variety of underworld maps. The version on the left was commented out on 1991-09-30.

DJSNDD      EQU $       ; danjyon sound<BGM> data    <SOUND0>
        BYTE    0FFH
        BYTE    007H
        BYTE    014H,010H,010H,010H
;
        BYTE    012H,012H,011H,011H,011H,011H,011H,0F2H
        BYTE    0F2H,0F2H,0F2H,018H,01BH,012H,012H,016H
        BYTE    012H,012H,016H,016H,012H,012H,012H,012H
        BYTE    012H,012H,012H,012H,012H,012H,010H,016H
        BYTE    016H,016H,016H,016H,016H,016H,018H,016H
        BYTE    012H,012H,012H,012H,003H,011H,011H,016H
        BYTE    01CH,016H,01BH,012H,012H,012H,0FFH,0FFH
        BYTE    0FFH,0FFH,0FFH,0FFH,0FFH,0FFH,0FFH,0FFH
;
        BYTE    017H,012H,0F2H,0F2H,0F2H,012H,0F2H,0F2H,0F2H
        BYTE    018H,017H,017H,0F2H,0F2H,0F2H,0F2H,0F2H
        BYTE    018H,018H,012H,012H,018H,018H,0F2H,0F2H
        BYTE    01BH,01BH,017H,012H,017H,012H,018H,018H
        BYTE    018H,01BH,012H,017H,0F2H,012H,018H,0F2H
        BYTE    017H,017H,017H,018H,012H,012H,0F2H,012H
        BYTE    012H,012H,012H,012H,01BH,012H,0FFH,0FFH
;
        BYTE    0FFH,0FFH,0FFH,0FFH,0FFH,0FFH,0FFH,0FFH
        BYTE    0FFH,0FFH,0FFH,0FFH,0FFH,0FFH,0FFH,0FFH
        BYTE    0FFH,0FFH,0FFH,0FFH,0FFH,0FFH,0FFH,0FFH
;
        BYTE    016H,016H,016H,016H,018H,015H,01BH,003H
        BYTE    018H,01BH,012H,010H,012H

DJSNDD      EQU $       ; danjyon sound<BGM> data    <SOUND0>
        BYTE    0FFH
        BYTE    007H
        BYTE    014H,010H,010H,010H
;
        BYTE    012H,012H,011H,011H,011H,011H,011H,0F2H
        BYTE    0F2H,0F2H,0F2H,018H,01BH,012H,012H,016H
        BYTE    012H,012H,016H,016H,012H,012H,012H,012H
        BYTE    012H,012H,012H,012H,012H,012H,010H,016H
        BYTE    016H,016H,016H,016H,016H,016H,018H,016H
        BYTE    012H,012H,012H,012H,003H,011H,016H,016H
        BYTE    01CH,016H,01BH,012H,012H,012H
;
        BYTE    00EH,012H,0F2H,0F2H,0F2H,012H,0F2H,0F2H,0F2H
        BYTE    018H,017H,00EH,0F2H,0F2H,0F2H,0F2H,0F2H
        BYTE    018H,018H,012H,012H,018H,018H,0F2H,0F2H
        BYTE    01BH,01BH,017H,012H,00EH,012H,018H,018H
        BYTE    018H,01BH,012H,017H,0F2H,012H,018H,0F2H
        BYTE    017H,017H,00EH,018H,012H,012H,0F2H,012H
        BYTE    012H,012H,012H,012H,01BH,012H
;
        BYTE    0FFH,0FFH,0FFH
;
        BYTE    016H,016H,016H,016H,018H,015H,01BH,003H
        BYTE    018H,01BH,012H,010H,012H
;
;
        BYTE    012H,01BH