The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Ages

The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Ages is a game that was released alongside The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Seasons. The games interact with each other in a variety of ways.

Sub-Page#

Prerelease Info

Development Text#

Sound Test Text#

Present at 0x103C21 in the European ROM is some text for a sound test.

DMG SOUND TEST
BGM:   /   
SE :   /    
CODE
B:SE OFF
Ä:BGM OFF

This text is not present in the US or Japanese ROMs.

Version Number#

At 0x1C1C9 in the US and Japanese ROMs and 0x1C22C in the European ROM is what appears to be a version number. This string saved at the beginning of each savefile (ie. addresses 0x0012 and 0x1002 in SRAM for file 1 and its backup). It is validated for correctness whenever a file is loaded. Oracle of Seasons has the same string except that it starts with "Z1".

Z21216-0

Localize Text#

At 0x1C04F 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#

Several items exclusive to Seasons have placeholder IDs in this game's data. These items are the Rod of Seasons (0x07), Magnet Glove (0x08), Slingshot (0x13) and Fool's Ore (0x1E). By changing RAM addresses $C689 (A button) or $C688 (B button) to any of the previous values, these items can be obtained.
Additionally, there is an unnamed item (0x02) that makes Link punch, which briefly appears in Seasons when dueling Blaino in his gym.

Unused Objects#

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Unused IDs#

ID	Picture	Name	Notes
0x1E		Piranha	Piranhas were only used in Seasons.
0x2E		Thwomp	Only the larger and spiked Thwomp can be found in both Oracle games.
0x4C		Takkuri	This vicious blue crow will attack Link as he approaches. If sub-ID is set to 1, it will appear from the side of the screen.

Unused Sub-IDs#

ID	Sub-ID	Picture	Name	Notes
0x09	0x04		Golden Octorok	The golden beasts only appeared in Seasons.
0x0B	0x02		Orange Leever	A more aggressive and faster variant of the sand-dwelling enemy.
0x0C	0x02		Golden Moblin (Arrows)	Another unused leftover from Seasons.
0x0D	0x02		Golden Lynel	This tough enemy can be found in the Tarm Ruins from Seasons.
0x21	0x02		Golden Darknut (Arrows)	Interestingly, golden arrow-shooting Darknuts are not seen in either of the two games.
0x25	0x01		Upgraded goponga flower	An upgraded version of the goponga flower which is not used in either of the two games.
0x2A	0x00		Green Giant Blade Trap	The hazardous blade traps come in two additional colors...
0x2A	0x01		Blue Giant Blade Trap	...which are not used in the Oracle series.
0x2A	0x02		Red Giant Blade Trap	...A giant red Blade Trap can be found in one of Seasons' dungeons, though.
0x31	0x01		Red Stalfos	Although Stalfos appear in many different colors, red and...
0x31	0x03		Green Stalfos	...green ones are exclusive to Seasons.
0x48	0x01		Golden Darknut (Sword)	One of the four golden beasts from Seasons, located in Western Coast.

Empty IDs#

Despite being empty placeholder IDs in this game, slots 0x2B, 0x46 and 0x50 correspond to objects found in Seasons. Respectively, these are Flame Trap, Gohma Larva and Fireball Spawner. Completely unused are 0x57 to 0x5C and 0x65 to 0x6F. However, 0x57 to 0x5B seem to have leftover data of some sorts.

Unused Maps#

Black Tower#

An older version of the Black Tower is present on screen 86 of the "Present Underwater" map. Most notably, a door is present on the right side. If this map had been used, going north would have led to the Black Tower entrance, while going west would have presumably lead back to Lynna City/Village. Where the doorway on the right would have gone to is anybody's guess.

Room#

Almost empty except for a counter, as well as a strong contender for "Least Exciting Unused Room in the Game".

Duplicate Rooms#

A few duplicates of various rooms found during normal gameplay are buried in the code. However, these rooms have different area IDs compared to their original counterparts found in normal gameplay, so they appear using incorrect tilesets.

Restore ID Area Maps#

Filler Screens#

Filler screens exist for most unreachable areas, for both the Past and Present overworld and Past and Present underwater. Not all of them use the same "base" tiles.

These rooms are used for unused screens outside of map boundaries.

On the other hand, these are used for screens that don't have an underwater equivalent defined. The "M" and "I" likely stand for "mukashi" and "ima" respectively, basically meaning "past" and "present".

Not all screens use these fillers, though; many of them instead use either glitched rooms or rooms with other purposes.

One of the Past "M" rooms has a row of pots at the top of the screen, for whatever reason.

Underwater#

Unused Graphics#

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

Rod of Seasons#

Present in the game are some graphics of the Rod of Seasons from Oracle of Seasons, which are obviously unused here. The palette of these graphics in Ages is unknown, so the palette used here is the one from Seasons.

Goron Vase - Tileset#

A tile of the Goron Vase from Seasons.

Underwater Cave Door#

A tile of a locked cave door. This is used in Seasons, but not here.

Farore#

While Farore does appear in Ages inside the Maku Tree, she sits behind a counter and is programed to only face downward. As such, the sprites of her facing left, right, and upward are not used.

Characters#

In the US version only, when creating a new file using the secrets option, entering a password that contains all upper case Ns will cause Link's name to be replaced by placeholder characters which are otherwise unseen.

Unused Tilesets#

Early Underwater Tileset#

Present	Past (Used)	Past (Unused)

Debug Graphics#

At 0x104000 in the European ROM are some graphics that appear to be for a debug mode. Interestingly, there's a 1999 credit for Capcom indicating the graphics are quite an old leftover. Similar-looking graphics can also be found in the Game Boy Color version of Magical Tetris Challenge. These graphics are not in the US or Japanese ROMs.

Unused Music#

To do: Rip.

Two tracks in the game's .GBS file are used in Oracle of Seasons, but not here.

Track #39 is the background music for Link's "date" with Rosa in Oracle of Seasons. Rosa only appears in a linked game in Ages, and even then, the player can't date her.

Track #57 is the theme for the Witch's Hut in The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening. This song is used for Syrup's potion shop in Oracle of Seasons. Although Syrup also appears in this game, her shop uses the ordinary "inside a building" theme instead.

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, which noticeably refers to the game as its English title. This screen was removed from other versions.

Title Screen#

Japan	US/Europe

Room in the Spirit's Grave#

The bottom-left room of the Spirit's Grave is empty in the Japanese version, whereas there is a jar to push on a switch in the European and American ones. The main advantage of this change is that it teaches players early in the game that jars can be pushed, an element which may not seem obvious to them.

Japan	International

Japan	US/Europe

Strange Shelves#

Three shelves in the mailman's house have a different design between versions.

Japan/US	Europe

This was done to fix a bug: In the Japanese and American versions, the three shelves on the top-right side of the room can be destroyed with the Power Bracelet or Level 2 sword, and react exactly like some pots. If you just destroy the bottom of a shelf, you will find a staircase that leads back to this same room; if you destroy the top and push the bottom, nothing will appear. After destroying the shelves, it is possible to go north; doing so will take you to Rafton's house, albeit in a wall, with the only way out being to reset the game.

Green Goron#

The clairvoyant Goron of Rolling Ridge does not exist in the Japanese version. He was added in to the international releases to guide the player along in collecting the Mermaid Keys.

Ending Screen#

The message saying that the adventure continues in Seasons does not exist in the Japanese version.

Time Period Icons#

The Japanese version uses the kanji 今 (ima) and 昔 (mukashi) for the present and past, respectively. These designs were changed in the English release.

Japan	US/Europe

Text Changes#

Some changes were made to the English text in the European release. Most notably, the text from talking to Cukeman enemies was changed. Their dialogue is nonsense in the US version, while in the European version, they give interesting hints about obscure game mechanics. There are also numerous minor changes to text coloration and indentation which are not listed below.

Virtual Console 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.

Game Boy Advance Features#

The Advance Shop in Lynna Village still exists, but since it only opens when the game is being played on the Game Boy Advance and the Virtual Console version is always in Game Boy Color mode, it is never open.
Thus, the GBA Nature and GBA Time rings cannot be obtained through normal means, except for with a modified Ring Secret.

Blue Snake's Deactivated Script#

The Blue Snake's script was disabled because the 3DS doesn't feature the Game Link Cable.