Ocarina of Time: Beta Build

[Phantoon]

A build of Ocarina of Time has been found on an F-Zero X prototype cart, and it's the most fascinating thing imaginable, revealing previously suspected things like the medallions (here called Seals giving magic powers beyond the three in the final game, unsuspected things like Mido being the sage of the Shadow Temple, and hugely shocking things like the Desert Colossus was originally a statue of the Evil Goddess Din, and Ganondorf was apparently her champion (hence the Triforce of Power).

It contains places like the graveyard from the early screenshots and all kinds of huge changes from the final game.

Beta Water Temple

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1351734007222984704

Horseback Archery

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1351738063203000322

The most shocking twist for me is probably the spell which yets you become Navi! A Zelda 2 callback few expected.

 

[Gaer]

Some clever folks have managed to load the maps into the final game engine to run around them!

 

[Gaer]

On reflection, I am pretty sure that some of those unused room layouts seen in the Beta Deku Tree dungeon were recycled for the Forest Temple in Twilight Princess...

 

[Phantoon]

Hyrule Field's beta layout with 4 quadrants and the emphasis on elemental arrows were probably a huge influence on Majora's Mask!

I'm amazed by how big these maps are. Nintendo obviously realised that they couldn't be populated enough to make them interesting though.

Also, after 20 years I finally realise why it's Lon Lon Ranch thanks to this - MaLON and TaLON

 

[Gaer]

Holy shit all this text!

The story and script are completely different! In the beta script you have to save Navi (and the other faeries) who had been living in the Deku Tree when he got cursed. In addition, Link isn’t the only Kokiri child who lacks a faerie.

The same beats of course but it is still surprising how much diverged between beta and final release.

Especially interesting to me is that the beta script had chosen answers for the player to give, much like BotW would do later:

おい！
そこの小僧！
Hey! You, over there!
Little kid!

今、城門をくぐった白馬を見たな！
どっちへ行ったか、言え！！
You must have just seen the white
horse gallop past the gates just now! Which way did it go, spill it!!

しるもんか！
まっすぐ行った
左へ曲がった
Who cares!?
Straight on ahead.
It turned and went left.

We can recognize that the person speaking the first lines are Ganondorf, and the text is the same or similar as final release.

But the last three lines are choices the player can make as evidence of the two lines later in the code from Ganondorf reflecting the choice made:

フフフ…
このオレ様にさからうとは、
バカな小僧だ！
Heh heh heh...
You're a stupid kid
for defying me.


なかなか素直な小僧だ。
ククク…
You're an honest one, kid.
Heh heh heh...

 

[Phantoon]

If you follow the pinned comment in this video you can play the maps for yourself:

You need a debug ROM to do it though. I wonder if romhackers will rebuild the original from this, there's quite a lot of information about what the game would have been.

 

[Kazin]

This is all very cool, and I hope more stuff is found, but why was this on an F-Zero 64 cart? Was it like, partially overwritten?

 

[Phantoon]

Yes. They'd just overwritten it with a near final F-Zero build (it was a development cartridge). Fortunately a lot of the code survived the wipe, and better still it was map data and dialogue. Most of the development screenshots we've seen of locations can be recreated with what we have here (except hilariously not the fabled Unicorn Fountain).

 

[RT-55J]

This is all very cool, and I hope more stuff is found, but why was this on an F-Zero 64 cart? Was it like, partially overwritten?

That's exactly right. F-Zero X is12 megabytes IIRC, while OoT is 32 megabytes, so we have the second half of a beta ROM now.

 

[LBD_Nytetrayn]

Funny that it came through this, of all things, and not the actual big leak.

 

[Phantoon]

The big leak isn't complete to my knowledge. There may be more to come.