The Legend of Zelda/Randomizer
Twitch user fcoughlin has a Randomizer for the Legend of Zelda that's getting really popular to run and to race.
Big thanks to Twitch user Catastrophe573 for putting together a lot of this information.
See more at Order of the Ate
Contents
Tutorial Video
Randomizer Mechanics and Glitches
Ganon's Cry
Normally Ganon makes a typical boss noise when you are adjacent to his boss room. When the layout of Level-9 is randomized this is a very useful hint! However, there are some special cases which can trick you.
First, the room with the skull layout on the floor (Ganon's normal room) will NEVER make the sound. Do not assume Ganon isn't next door!
Another case are the Patras. Their cry/roar will mask Ganon's. If you want to 'listen' in a room with a Patra you must first kill it, leave the room, and reenter the room.
Bomb Out of Ganon's Room
Or any other room that has tried to lock you in! If you're stuck and don't want to defeat the enemies (or can't!) then break out the bombs!
Triforce Room Doors
The room which requires you to have the Triforce to pass will NEVER contain a bomb wall. If an expected exit is "missing", such as the north exit in the 1st quest, then that wall is 100% guaranteed to be solid.
A door missing in this way is not necessarily covering Ganon or Zelda. Don't assume anything about the other side of the wall.
Decoding Warp Stairs Order
The any-road shortcuts form a loop of 4 destinations, and each staircase warps you forward in the loop. From left to right, the staircases advance Link by 1, 2, and 3 screens. To see all of the destinations, just keep taking the left staircase.
Money Making Game Abuse
Sometimes you just need a lot of rupees. It happens, especially in the second quest.
If a Money Making Game is anywhere near the starting screen (such as in the non-randomized 1st quest) then you can cheat by saving and reloading your game. Up-A will not work. It must be a full save and retry.
The mechanics of the game are unimportant. Just take the center choice every time.
Skip Door Repairs
If you Up-A out of a door repair before the message finishes then you won't be charged anything! Of course you'll be sent back to the start when you continue. It's up to you if the time/rupees tradeoff is worth it.
Useful Screen Wraps
Avoiding backtracking and taking efficient routes is very important when racing Zelda Randomizer. Here are some unusual screen wraps which save a lot of time, plus a visual reference for the first two.
Lost Woods Skip
Go one screen north of the Lost Woods. (There is a candle location here.)
Performing the screen wrap from right to left is easier if you position Link directly under the trees and use the visual guide below.
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All screen wraps work just like this one.
Ladder-Heart Wrap
This one is mentioned separately because it is unique. It requires the ladder! First, collect the heart container on the overworld which requires the stepladder.
Basically you're going to use the screen wrap technique, but in the middle of the screen while standing on the ladder. This allows you to get extra uses out of your ladder while standing on it!
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If you need to explore the green area to the left this will save a lot of walking around.
Top Left Reset Wrap
If you screen wrap out of bounds you'll be sent back to the starting screen. The only practical place to do this is in the top left corner of the overworld where Level-9 appears in the second quest.
This produces the same effect as using Up-A except that it saves your current hearts! It could be useful after exploring this corner of the world.
Other Useful Wraps
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For all of these wraps, do the standard screen wrap like the Lost Woods Skip. Beware, most of them need to be done from the center edge of the screen! If you try to use a nearby wall for visual reference then you may end up stuck inside a wall after scrolling the screen.
Free Locked Doors
Entering a dungeon room will open the bombable wall or locked door that you entered through, even if the other side is still sealed. This is how the level 1 locked door trick works in the vanilla game, where leaving and reentering level 1 will open the locked door at the top of the starting screen, but it's actually more general than this.
When you exit off the edge of a screen, the game figures out the direction you're entering the next screen. However, when using up+A or entering a dungeon, the last entrance direction is preserved into the dungeon's starting screen. Because of this, when you leave a dungeon, the game thinks you're entering the next (overworld) screen by that opposite direction, but it doesn't recalculate this when you reenter the dungeon, so the door opposite the one you used to leave the level will be opened. Scrolling on the overworld also marks the entrance direction as open, so entering a screen containing a dungeon from particular directions can be used to open doors on those corresponding directions in the dungeon. This even works with the recorder (always entering from the left), roocorder (always entering from the bottom), and overworld up+A (preserves the last entrance direction).
You can also do this trick with up+A in dungeons, but it's more complicated. When you use up+A in the dungeon, the opened-door state on the old screen will be applied to the starting screen, so any door on the old screen that can be closed (bombable wall, locked door, shutter door) and is currently open will be able to open its corresponding door on the dungeon entrance screen. You can even use this as you enter a room through a shutter door, since it starts out open; it will stay marked as open for several frames after appearing closed, so mashing start while entering should catch it. Note that while standard doors and false walls are open, they do not count as having been opened and can't be used for this trick.