Player

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

Note: The dates in square brackets on this page indicate the internal date stamp of the file in question unless prefixed with "LM," which means that the file has a more accurate and specific last-modified-by date.

Palettes#

Green Mail#

Link went through a variety of palette changes over time. Selected examples are displayed below, though there are more to be found in the artist workspace backup files.

soto.COL [89-11-15]

zel_chra [LM: 90-03-06]

muki-muki.COL [90-04-04]

bomber.COL [90-04-24]

earth.COL [90-04-24]

map.COL [90-04-24]

hyama-1.COL.BAK [90-04-24]

hyama-1.COL.BAK [90-04-24]

osr-hsinden.COL [90-06-11]

osr-hsinden.COL [90-06-11]

flower.COL [90-06-11]

7.COL.BAK [90-06-11]

zel_char.asm [LM: 91-06-05]

zel_char1.asm [LM: 91-10-07]

Here's how these palettes would have looked on Link. The reason two sprite sheets (2.CGX.BAK and earth.CGX) are used to display these is that the palettes occasionally only display well on one or the other. Similarly, the final two palettes from the PLAYCG subsections of the CORGENE data in zel_char.asm and zel_char1.asm, pictured above, don't map well onto these early sheets, as they were created to apply to later Link graphics.

soto.COL [89-11-15]	zel_chra.asm [LM: 90-03-06]	muki-muki.COL [90-04-04]

bomber.COL [90-04-24]	earth.COL [90-04-24]	osr-hsinden.COL [90-06-11]

osr-hsinden.COL [90-06-11]	flower.COL [90-06-11]	7.COL.BAK [90-06-11]

zel_char.asm [LM: 91-06-05]	zel_char1.asm [LM: 91-10-07]

Other Palettes#

There are also some palettes for other incarnations of Link found in the CORGENE data of the following three graphic files.

#	Description	zel_chra.asm [LM: 90-03-06]	zel_char.asm [LM: 91-06-05]	zel_char1.asm [LM: 91-10-07]
00	Green Mail
01	Blue Mail
02	Red Mail
03	Yellow Mail/Bunny Link
04	Electrocuted Link

Here are some of the palettes applied to Link's sprites. The first three palette colors of the zel_chra.asm palette rows (slots 0x01 to 0x03) are filled with a blue-purple background color. These correspond to the colors of Link's shoes and hat in earth.CGX, as seen in the middle image of the top row of the table in the section above. As such, to create the mockup images of the zel_chra palettes below, the colors from slots 0x08 to 0x0A have been copied into slots 0x01 to 0x03 to give Link a hat whose colors match his mail.

zel_chra.asm [LM: 90-03-06]	zel_char.asm [LM: 91-06-05]	zel_char1.asm [LM: 91-10-07]
Blue Mail

Red Mail

Yellow Mail	Bunny Link

Sprites#

Light World Sprites#

Some of the earliest Link sprite sheets are partially drawn over with water and early dungeon graphics, including floors, castle walls with curtains, a door, treasure chests, and a torch stand. (Indeed, the "mizu" seent in two of the file names means "water.") They can be combined with .OBJ files to see some animations. While the images look similar, there are slight differences between each sheet's sprites.

In these early sheets, Link's arms are separate from his body sprite. The sheets also include sprites that may correspond to removed actions, such as the second row from the bottom, where Link can be seen to pray, kneeling while he makes the sign of the cross. Instead of being an action that the player can select, in the final game, this action used in the sequence where Link opens the Desert Palace.

The sprites in 2m-2q.CGX are final, except for the ones at the very bottom after the gap.

2.CGX.BAK [90-04-24]	4mizu.CGX.BAK [90-04-24]	1.CGX [90-04-24]


earth.CGX [LM: 90-10-28]	chivilink.CGX [90-06-11]	2m-2q.CGX [90-12-26]

Other sprites can be found in the following files.

flower.CGX.BAK [90-06-11]

mori.CGX [90-12-26]

switch-rink.CGX.BAK [LM: 91-03-28]

Dark World Sprites#

chivilink.CGX has a Linkaroo, which may represent the earliest example of a design for what became Bunny Link in the final game. The designs in nami.CGX and ob.CGX resemble the elephantine Dark World residents.

chivilink.CGX [90-06-11]

nami.CGX [90-12-26]

ob.CGX [90-12-26]

Game Over Sprites#

The bottom section of zz.CGX has more complete graphics for the deceased version of Link mentioned above. It may have been part of a Game Over sequence in which the grim spectre of Death zapped Link back to life.

ice.CGX [90-12-26]	zz.CGX [90-12-26]	日本_Ver3/char/2r-2w.CGX

chivilink.CGX also has a few graphics for this.

chivilink.CGX [90-06-11]

World Map Sprites#

This chibi version of Link may have been used as a player icon on an overworld map like this one.

chivilink.CGX [90-06-11]