Zelda Starring Zelda 2: Download

UPDATE: I'm getting LOTS of reports of bugs and patching issues. There's for sure a "buffer overrun" error because of my dialogue changes. Oops. Please keep reporting your difficulties to me. I'll be doing the first update soon.

The moment you've all been waiting for.

Download the Zelda Starring Zelda 2 SNES Patch
DEFEAT GANNON
SAVE HYRULE

Image of Zelda with the Master Sword by Eran Fowler. I really need to turn this into a proper promotional image. That pile of skulls is just the right amount of space for "SAVE HYRULE" in really gritty lettering.

Now, you probably all know the drill by now, but let me refresh you. I can't release the complete game for download. Why? Because we're in legal gray area. To stay on the safe side, I release a "patch", that you apply that "patch", to your own "Zelda - a Link to the Past" ROM.

You can patch your ROM with Lunar IPS in Windows. Some emulators will auto-patch your ROM for you, so check your emulator's read-me if you're not using Windows. 

Some tips: Make sure your "Zelda - a Link to the Past" ROM is for the SNES (not Game Boy Advance) and use one with a .smc file type.

If you're not satisfied with my version and you want to edit your own version of "Zelda - a Link to the Past", you should use the following software, because they are amazing. If there was such a thing as "industry standard" in Zelda ROM editing, it would be these pieces of software.

• Z-Compress -- Zelda - a Link to the Past uses "compressed" graphics. You won't be able to edit the sprite tiles unless you decompress them, and you can't play-test the game without compressing the graphics again. Z Compress will do that, but it's a bit scary to use because it must be run through command prompt box, but don't worry, you won't screw anything up.

Fun Fact: Super Mario World also uses compressed graphics and you can use this same program to decompress them, though I have a feeling you might need to change the memory location number.

• YY-CHR -- Incredibly powerful sprite editor. It can read and edit just about any ROM with pixel art. It can't edit the palettes but it can load the palettes from save-state files, so you know exactly which colors you're working with. You can also copy-paste tiles, even tiles from different YY-CHR windows. I know, right?
  

• Hyrule Magic -- The description is "a Zelda 3 editor" but it should probably be called "the most comprehensive Zelda 3 editor ever built by humans". Seriously, you can do almost anything with this program. Its designed as a level editor, mostly to move around existing sprites, so I would still edit sprites in YY-CHR, but this is where I changed palettes and changed the script. Without using any code. Apparently, it can absolutely destroy your ROM though, so be careful and save often.

As part of my quest to locate Zelda's original sprite palette, I used Orochimaru's Perfect Guide to Hyrule Magic. It didn't quite have the information I needed, but I could see how it would be useful to someone who was a die-hard dungeon editor. Zelda's original palette, by the by, is the first 8 colors of World Colors 2, Pal 0 in HMagic. It's a "shared" palette, so be aware that you're also changing the colors for other sprites. Hat tip to arc-nova.org for that one.

And of course, no modding project is complete without at least one (or forty) trips to RomHacking.net. I go there all the time, but I still have no idea how to upload my files there. Their uploader doesn't like google drive. But they're always the best resource for rom editing projects. Even if you're not into editing, it's worth a trip over there to see what projects other people have done. People do the craziest stuff in their free time. ...Not me, of course. This is all perfectly normal.

Oh, and if you were wondering, I use the iBuffalo usb gamepad. Totally worth the money.

Big thank you to all of the people that created the resources above, and to all of the fans of the first project. I couldn't have edited all of those sprites without all of you.

If you spot any overlooked pronouns or mislaid sprites in Zelda Starring Zelda 2, leave me a comment. I expect I'll have to do an update here and there. Now, go storm the castle!

Zelda Starring Zelda 2: Dev Blog 3

AND THE TIME OF DESTINY FOR PRINCESS ZELDA IS DRAWING NEAR

If y'all checked my blog recently, you probably saw that I've extended my deadline for myself till this weekend. I really need to get it done this weekend because there's a group of Indie Game Developers I'm trying to impress and they have their monthly meeting this weekend. But never fear. I'm still chugging along. You will get your Zelda.

Here's where I'm at with the sprites. I've got 30 left. I have no earthly idea where they go. There is a very real possibility that some are unused in the game, the others are probably one-offs that only used in one or two scenes. I've got enough of a "feel" for Zelda that I'm going to just paint over them without checking the animation, but it makes me feel like I'm flying blind.

Ah well. Here's the complete sprite list for Zelda as it is right now, without the Link/Lords sprites that I've cooked up.

Hardcore fans will notice that the bunny is now a naked bunny instead of a bunny in a tunic.
This is because Zelda wears a cape and the bunny tail looks weird in the cape.

Yes, "Lords". I promised you some final story decisions. I'm really not changing much. I want to preserve the original feel of the game, so most things are not changing. Zelda is still a princess, Gannon must be defeated, and Hyrule is still kinda worthless at defending itself, despite the wide-spread availability of weapons, magic, and bombs.
The decedents of the Seven Sages are still being captured. You still gotta go fetch them. The biggest change is that all of the decedents are now "Lords" instead of "Maidens". I'd love to make them a mix of Lords and Maidens, but the problem is that Nintendo only made one "Maiden" sprite for the SNES version of Link to the Past. Each "Maiden" is just the same sprite in different colors. I can't change this with the tools I have.

This sprite, actually. In the crystal. "Walking" Zelda originally has her own sprite set,
but her "lying down" sprite is shared with the other Maidens. If you look closely,
the Maiden's right arm is on her dress and the left arm is hidden. This is because
this sprite is also the Maiden's "walking" sprite. So the lords/maidens must look uniform.
Nintendo's sprite decisions continue to boggle me. O_o

But it makes sense. The Seven Sages are all dudes (again, only one sprite) so it makes sense to have the Sage's power follow the male line. It's one of those Fantasy Genere trope things and I feel comfortable conforming to it. 

The other thing that's sorta changing is that Zelda is Link's sister. This isn't a change, really. It's sorta hinted at in the beginning. The text in the screen shot is unedited.

Zelda is my what? WHAT, Uncle? SPEAK TO ME!!! NOOOOOO!!

And then he dies. Like you do.

Zelda-is-Link's-Sister is a fan theory that makes the rounds sometimes. It all stems from Link's Uncle's unfinished death bed confession (seen above). The two most likely options are "destiny" or "sister" and I've always sided on "sister". Remember, the guy that's talking is Link's uncle. Not his dad. Link's parentage is unclear.

Also the original pre-game cut scene says "the time of destiny for Princess Zelda is drawing near", so we can probably eliminate "destiny" from this really, really, really important death bed confession. Sister makes more sense.

The conversation above will be the only time I'll put "brother" into the script. This is the only time that the game hints at a deeper relationship between Link and Zelda (aside from their telepathic connection) so I won't make a big deal about it.

"Save your brother... Link is the ... ..."

And that'll be it. This is just to quickly explain why Zelda is still Princess Zelda, and not Farm-Hand-Gone-Wild Zelda.

So to sum up: Lord Link is your brother. That's all. The other changes will just be cosmetic pronoun changes. I'll rely on you guys to alert me to any pronouns that I miss and I will probably have to release at least one update.

I also realize that not everyone will be 100% on-board with my storyline decisions, so I'll also provide links to the various editing tools to use to change the story in a way that suits you best.

Next post will be the release.

Zelda Starring Zelda 2: Dev Blog Part 2

Number of sprites completed: 151
Number of sprites left: 60

Well, 60-ish.

The extra-long arm is in the code. I can't change it.

She sticks out her butt when she pushes. :)
One of the changes I made to Link's original animation.

Zelda, the character, is mostly done at this point. She moves. She slashes. She spins. She runs. She has a cape and a tiara.

She's a full character. I'm currently doing a play through to check that everything landed correctly. And to take some preliminary notes on the story. There's only a handful of pronouns to flip around, but they're very important.

You know what those last 60 sprites are? About 30 are her "ice rod" moves, ten are her "bunny costume" and the others are odds and ends, including the other princesses in the game. I actually have to get to those parts of the game to check the animations I'm creating.

See those lines? Those are markers for a sprite set. These are the in-betweens for "walking on curved stairs" sprites. The orange is for "up", green is "down". Pink for "not sure". Those in the middle? Some of the "Ice Rod" sprites and "Push" sprites. Only some.  Just... randomly laid there. Nintendo's sprites are a mess.

And yes, that means I've been playing the opening castle over and over for weeks. Pity me.

Link in his broken colors. He looks like a crusader. Hey Link! Where'd you get the coconut?

Remaining issues to deal with
~ Link is the wrong color. Right now, his coloring is white, purple, & red.
~ Not sure how to explain why Zelda is in the shack in the beginning
~ Not sure how Zelda's colors will hold up throughout the game
~ Kinda worried about the "badrom" error at the bottom of my emulator
~ Not sure if added text will wrap in the text boxes.
~ Cannot. Find. Link's. Mugshot.

THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS I DON'T KNOW WHERE THIS IS.

This will bug me.

The mod will be done by the end of this month, barring any bizarre technical difficulties. Please stay tuned. My next post will be about my final story decisions. This game is very important to a lot of people, so I'll need to back up my decisions with lots of complicated reasoning. Don't worry, though. Zelda will always be a Princess.

My work space. I pause the ROM when Link suddenly strobes into view, then I draw a box over possible matches for the sprite. I save, recompress (with the command prompt box on the left), and run the rom again. If the box pops up, I know I've found the sprite. Sprites can sometimes take around 2 hours to track down.

I don't expect this mod to take off in the way that the first one took off, of course. This is mostly for myself and for the people that supported me (And my donors. You all are the best.). But don't worry, I'll still release the patch here.

I'll leave you all with this. A big thank you to Eran Fowler, who painted this beautiful promotional material. Eran posted some amazing progress shots on facebook and I plan to turn them into a .gif.  You can see Eran's professional portfolio (which includes art for video games, hint hint hire Eran hint hint) at EranFolio.com.

If you'd like to earmark any Coffee Fund donations for Eran just make a note. The donation link is at the top of the page.

Zelda Starring Zelda SNES: Link to the Past -- Dev Blog

Number of sprites completed: 27
Number of sprites left: 186

There's so much to do in this game I figured I'd take the time to do a proper dev blog. Well, not a "proper" one, if such a thing exists, but I at least want to show you my work flow so you can make your own edits to these kinds of games.

Link to the Past is one of those games where I have to be extra careful to get everything right. If your friends are anything like my friends, Link to the Past is THE Zelda game and they would absolutely murder me if I got the feel of the game wrong. Well, that and Ocarina of Time. I have to be very careful to make it feel like a Zelda game. Zelda can't just be a female Link. This isn't Link's Drag Race (although someone should make that game) She has to be the Princess. She has to move right and the story has to make sense.

The first thing I did was to drop Link to the Past into Tile Layer Pro (an easy to use sprite editor) and see what I could work with. No research. No nothing. I was the kind of kid that didn't use the instructions to make my lego castles. Instructions are for the weak. Sometimes this works out and you end up with a castle. Other times, the "castle" you want to build is one of only two SNES games that used compressed graphics that can't be read by Tile Layer Pro. And then you cry.

NOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!

Nah, just kidding. Then you google. If you're not very tech savvy, this is he Great Big Secret That Your Tech Support Person Doesn't Want You To Know: your tech support person is google-ing the CRAP out of your tech problems. Tech savvy people aren't smarter. We just google really good.

That's when I found two new tools: ZCompress and YY-CHR. The first tool decompresses the graphics in Link to the Past and puts them in a .bin file. The second tool is a new tile editor that can read .bin files. After you edit, you just use the same zcompress tool to repack the new graphics into the old file. ZCompress is a little harder for me to use since there's no GUI. Instead you have to run it through Command Prompt -- a scary little black box that looks like an old DOS screen.

Up. Enter. Up. Enter. Up. Enter.

If you've never used it before, it can do all of the normal things you do with your mouse (open files, move from folder to folder, copy files, check the status of your network, etc) but Command Prompt does it with text instead of graphics. I've mostly stayed away from it over the years, but my boyfriend warned me that I'd need to get comfortable with the basic commands if I wanted to get into game development. (I do understand why now. Developing a GUI is a lot of unnecessary work for such a simple program.) I have to use Command Prompt and ZCompress each time I want to check my animations. And the animations need a lot of checking.

Because...

They're not in order. o.o The frames are OUT OF ORDER. WHAT IS THIS I DON'T. I can kinda sorta see how one might relate to another one, but there's some that I'm completely lost as to what they do. I'd kill for a map right now.

In order to keep everyone looking right, I'm doing my best to work off of the original images. That means I've dropped the "official" Zelda sprites onto similar looking Link sprites and then I try to edit Link's existing sprites down to something that resembles Zelda. Like so:




Animation powers activate! Anyway, she won't be orange in the final edit. I have one more tool to use after I get the sprites all in the right places. Zelda WILL be purple and Link WILL be green. If I have to go in there and paint them myself, they will be purple and green.

And that's where I'm at. As always, a big thank you to all of the modders who did the heavy lifting in creating these utilities.
Till next time. :)

Zelda Starring Zelda: The Python Code

Update! I've made the .py file available on my google drive. IMPORTANT NOTE! You'll need to have a copy of Legend of Zelda named "original.nes" in the same folder as the .py file. Run the .py file and it'll spit out a file called "hack.nes". Have at it, my fellow script kiddies! :)

Here's the full code to edit the opening and closing screens, the colors of Zelda's tunic, and a few other things. Simon says it was no trouble at all to create, but I don't believe that for a minute. :P

You'll need Python installed and a Legend of Zelda ROM labeled "original.nes" to run it. It'll spit out a new file called "hack.nes" but remember that it won't alter the shape of the sprites. That's all Tile Layer Pro. If you have any questions about editing, like editing the colors, please post them here and I'll be happy to help. If you have a question about Python, you can ask in the comments, or ask it at my boyfriend's blog.

NOTE: The indentations didn't survive the copy/paste. :( I'll replace them later.   (Edit: Fixed-ish. The indents aren't as dramatic here as they are in my txt editor, but I hope it's easier for people to read)

Code after the jump

Zelda Starring Zelda: Frequently Asked Questions

Why is Zelda wearing red and not green?
I like her in red and I didn't want her to look like Link in a dress. :) I have a purple and blue dress that I'd really like her to switch to during the course of the game, but alas, the code for the dress-changing power-up rings is hard to control.


Can you publish the python code that your boyfriend created?
Sure! I'll share the full text in the next post.

Did you call the patch "Legend of Link"?
No. I think the Legend of Zelda should star Zelda. But you can call it whatever you want. :P


Did you do this for your kid?
No, I think you're thinking of the Donkey Kong Dad, and the dad who search-replaced the pronouns in Wind Waker to make Link into a girl. This is just a personal project to right a wrong from my own childhood. I wanted to play as the princess that saves the day and now I can. 
  
Can you do the same thing to Link to the Past?
Yep. I think I'll do it too. It's a personal favorite of a few of my friends. It'll make a nice birthday present for them. I'll post it on my blog when I get it done.


Can you do the same thing to Ocarina of Time?
 Technically, yes. I could do a swap of Link for Zelda or Sheik (or even Ganondorf, for that matter.)  It wouldn't be a short 4-day project. It would probably be more of a 10-month project and trust me, this is not a gig that pays. lol
 The bigger issue is that I don't think I have enough control over the rest of the code to force the story to make any sense. So yeah, you could play as Shiek, but then who is in the Palace? Zelda? Is Zelda still Shiek in this game? Or how about Link? Why is Link in the palace? Is he Prince Link now? Did he marry the old Zelda? ...actually that might work. Let me get back to you.


Can you do the same thing to ---
No, but you can. Seriously. You can totally do it for yourself. It's really not that hard and there's tons of programs out there that can help you create the game that you want to play. No programming experience required.


You should do a gender-swapped Metroid!!
People keep asking for a gender-swapped Metroid as a joke, and I think it's because they actually can't think of another game that stars a girl. lol It's actually kinda depressing if you think about it.


Are you a part of a multi-national feminist cult that is plotting to ruin all fun, destroy the American way of gaming, and turn all men into women?
Yes. We meet on Tuesdays at the "New World Order Bar" in the Freemason lodge next to Bohemian Grove. Bring a dessert to share.

Wait, was that a joke?
Yes.

How can I get in touch with you?
Leave me a comment here on my blog or message me through Linkedin. I'm not a big e-mail person, so this is really the best way to get in contact with me. :)

Zelda Starring Zelda: The Story

Earlier this week, I read about that awesome dad who edited Donkey Kong to let his daughter play as the Princess. I wished I had someone who could have done that for me. Then I remembered. I'm an adult now. If he could work it out, I could too.


I'm hobbyist animator and my boyfriend is a professional video game programmer. I sent him the article and I asked, "How do I do this?"

"I think he's just using an existing rom editor, so he just went in and changed the sprites."

"I want to switch around Link and Zelda."

That got his attention. We'd been talking about a Zelda-centric game ever since the first Tropes vs Women in Games video was released. He's a huge fan of the series and really wants to see a game completely based around Zelda. The series could use a shake-up like that.

For me, I played my first Zelda game when I was pretty young, and at the time, I thought the game did star Princess Zelda. I figured I'd get to play as a magical battle princess that saved her kingdom. The game was fun, but I was bummed out that I never got to play as Zelda. But like I said, I'm an adult now. There's no one to stop me from eating candy before bed and there's nothing standing in the way of me creating the games I want to play.

We started to dig around the internet for the tools to edit the files. Let me tell you, there are dozens of tools out there to help you, no matter what game you're trying to mess around with. The nice thing about the programs is that you don't have to be a programmer to use them. (Yay!)  Some of the tools were even specific to "The Legend of Zelda", but almost all of the Zelda-specific tools were just level editors, so I didn't end up using any of those. The sprite editor was easiest to find. I talked a little about "Tile Layer Pro" already, but it's worth mentioning again, because it's really the coolest little program.

Tiles are the blocks of pixels that make up each sprite. Animation happens when the tiles are swapped for other tiles. So, to create new animation, you just have to edit the appropriate tile.

Some tips! Make sure that tile goes back in the same place where you found it, or you might end up with random legs and arms sticking out of scenery. When you open up your ROM in Tile Layer Pro, you'll see a grid with all of the ROM information displayed as pixels. It shows *all* of the rom information, so you're going to see a flaming hot mess -- at first. Keep scrolling down until you find something vaguely sprite-shaped and use the "+" and "-" keys on the keyboard to align them. But beware -- the tiles will go back to their starting alignment when you scroll and not all parts of the code use the same alignment. We spent hours hunting down the princess tiles because we didn't realize that the alignment changed from section to section.

Everything else, I learned in this fabulous (and delightfully short!) tutorial

Take care to REALLY make sure you've really hunted down every instance of the tiles you want to edit. Link's "Large-Shield walk cycle" appears in two completely different parts of the code and Zelda's "Standing" and "arms raised" animations are on two different lines.

The best part? When you're done editing your sprites, just click save! That's it. You've edited your file.

Unfortunately, that program can't edit colors so Zelda was still in a green dress. But I was happy with my Zelda and I was busily hacking away at monsters when suddenly Simon sends me a file.

It was the code for the opening and closing scrolls, as well as the code for the colors of the "Tunic", nestled in a bit of Python script that would do a search and replace on my newly edited rom. I could rewrite the scrolls and change her dress to anything I liked. Best. Boyfriend. Ever. :D

While I had been animating, Simon had done some code googling and found a Legend of Zelda ROM Map, which was the hard work of some brilliant Zelda enthusiasts. Line by line, the map explains what each piece of code does. Without that wiki or the Computer Archeology website, we would still be hunting down code and play testing until our brains had melted. Play testing is exciting at first, but as soon as you stop seeing results, it becomes the worst thing in the world.

(Side note: I did ask Simon if I could publish the code here, but he's a perfectionist and the code isn't as slick as he'd like. I have a screen shot on my other post though. Update! We published the code! Thanks Simon!)

Now I had complete control of all of the elements of the game that I needed to make this Zelda's story. I just needed to come up with new opening text. But after playing as Zelda: Warrior Princess, I honestly couldn't figure out how to put Link back into the story. In cannon, Link is the one with the sword. When you take away the sword, who is he? Just some guy that can't get out of a room? Do I make him Prince Link? Is he a knight to Zelda? (Simon's idea :)) In the end, I decided he's still Link. Even though he's seemingly powerless to leave a simple room.

When I got to the end of the game, I took a screen capture and sent it to Simon. He was strangely quiet. "My first thought" he told me later, "was 'Link, why are you standing there? Just jump over the flames.' But I guess that's the point isn't it? The gender in games thing."

My friends have all had very strong emotions to the switch of Zelda and Link -- all positive so far. A male friend of mine said he teared up when he saw Zelda holding the sword over her head. (he's a sweetie) A friend posted a link to my blog with a "Because if Miyamoto won't, we will." Another friend told me she couldn't wait for her baby daughter to be old enough to play as Zelda. Many friends told me that it made them excited and happy. Not in the cute-ironic way, but really happy.

It makes me happy too. It feels really good to play as Zelda. I feel like I connect with her character better and it makes me feel like a big damn hero. It's so nice to be swinging around a sword as Zelda. I can't describe it. You really should try it for yourself. :D

I'm sure people will think I'm trying to make some kind of anti-Link statement, but I like this franchise a lot. And if it really bothers you, just think of it as overly complicated fan fiction. :P

All said and done, the project took only about 3 days to complete, including the play-through. Not too shabby. Basic sprite editing is very simple and requires no programming skill, but if you do happen to have a programmer handy you'll be able to gain almost complete control over these old classics.

I've put together a video of some of my play testing, including video from a complete play-through with all of the cheats on (which are REALLY hard to turn off, btw) and I added some of the Orchestrated Zelda theme music because I really love that theme. Zelda defeats Gannon at 2:02

 

 The patch is on my Google drive. 

Yes, just a patch. Unfortunately, I can't just hand you my edited ROM. It's a copyright thing. So instead you'll need to:

1) Find your own unedited Legend of Zelda NES ROM
2) Download my patch
3) Download an NES emulator (I like Nestopia)
4) Place the patch and the ROM in the same folder
5) "Open" the PATCH in Nestopia
6) Follow the Nestopia prompts and select the unedited ROM

MAC USERS!
Nestopia is pretty bare bones for Mac, so the Mac version can't patch for you. You'll have to use a patching program instead. MultiPatch seems to work pretty well.

Important note: Some ROMs have a hard time with the patch. If you're experiencing any glitches, try a different ROM. Happy gaming! :)

Zelda Starring Zelda Patch

Kids, we are GO!

I just finished a quick play-through on god mode to make sure that all of the sprites look right. Earlier, I had discovered that Link's head "tile" had been copied over a mountain "tile". Yikes. Everything looks good now and I was able to get some footage and screen shots. Even in god-mode, this game was HARD. It took me around 8 hours to finish. @.@
But it felt really good to play as Zelda. Not just "accomplishment" good, but "there was a rock in my shoe and it's gone now" good. I remember when I was a kid, I felt really cheated when I found out that I couldn't play as Zelda in her own game. I was a little surprised how much of that old emotion I'd held onto. But it's fixed now. :)

Here's the patch.

Yes, just a patch. Unfortunately, I can't just hand you my edited ROM. It's a copyright thing. So instead you'll need to:
1) Find your own unedited Legend of Zelda NES ROM
2) Download my patch
3) Download an NES emulator (I like Nestopia)
4) Place the patch and the ROM in the same folder
5) "Open" the PATCH in Nestopia
6) Follow the Nestopia prompts and select the unedited ROM

Nestopia will combine the two. Have fun storming the castle!

Click the image for a comparison from the original. In the original, Zelda is in the black square, not Link and it's the only time in the entire game that we see her.

Here's some more screen shots. I'll update later with my in-game footage. I'm also considering doing a few releases of the patch for different dress colors. I have several purples, a pink, a blue, and even some greens picked out. Also, if you're code-inclined, I could use some help tracking down the bit of code that regulates the in-game dress changes.

Special thanks to the people at The Legend of Zelda page of the Data Crystal wiki
and to the people behind The Legend of Zelda page at Computer Archeology. Without those resources, this project would have taken weeks, not 3 days. You guys are amazing.

Zelda Starring Zelda 3

Zelda Starring Zelda

She's playable. :D :D

Zelda Starring Zelda 2

Part two of the Zelda Starring Zelda project.

I was going to finish the animation and call it a day, but my boyfriend dug up the code for the opening scroll and the code for the colors, so I spent this morning making a new story and color correcting. He also wrote me a neat little Python program that searches the .nes file for the old code, then replaces it with the new code.

The Python file is on the left, the emulated file is on the right.

This isn't the grid. It's just a list of all of the possible color combinations.

The colors for this game are a bit weird, at first. Basically, the the scroll is in a big grid. The grid is separated out into blocks of 4 letters x 4 letters (for example, MANY and DARK are in the same block). The color of each block can be changed with a two-digit "hexadecimal" code. The wonderful people at "Data Crystal" (a rom-hacking wiki) have made a handy chart for working out which code to use. (so the code for MANY and DARK is 00, because both top and bottom are white.)

The 4x4 blocks are further divided into sets of 2 letters (MA   NY on top, DA   RK on bottom)




It's weird. There's such a huge rom-hacking community out there, but I think I might be the first to switch Zelda and Link.

Also, I can't tell you how much trouble it was to settle on a new opening scroll. Link was even "Prince Link" for a few hours. When Zelda and Link are reversed, Link is a really hard character to write for. Maybe that's why we haven't seen a proper Zelda game yet. Writers just assume she's boring.

Well, eff that.

Zelda Starring Zelda

This was the first stage of my Zelda Starring Zelda project. With a LOT of help (thanks Computer Archeology!) and some luck, I isolated Link's animations in the .nes file and carefully edited them down to look like Zelda. The grid is helpful, to a point. Not all of the tiles line up nicely in the grid and each set had to be individually adjusted. Simon did a brilliant search trick to track down the rogue tiles. It took us hours to work it all out. lol Also, in the original game, Zelda only has 2 sets of "tiles" so I had to completely make up her back and her profiles, but I'm happy with her design.

Just fyi, this program won't edit the color information. That's harder to get to. The "palette" that you see is just for your own sanity. BUT this program edits the actual game file, so any changes you make will show up in the actual game. So poke around. Creating Zelda only took me a few hours.

Edited with Tile Layer Pro