Zelda 2 - Behind the Code

Explanation of Fairy Warp Glitch, Objects, Elevators, and more



Music by:

Featured cheat codes:
A smaller Great Palace: EIXATNGE

Double Elevator Speed -
Down: AUKIEEAP
Up: ESKIOEET

MAX Elevator Speed -
Down: YNKIEEAO
Up: EEKIOEET

0:00 Intro
1:02 Disk vs Cartridge Overworld
1:35 The Mystery of F-Attack
3:31 Zelda 2's Object System
10:24 The Fairy Warp Glitch and Sidescrolling World Design
19:53 The Zelda 2 Level-Up Softlock
23:37 Slow Elevators or Fast Elevators?
27:59 Outro

#ZELDA2 #CODE #PROGRAMMING

[ar_xiv]

the lag in the music is somehow very nostalgic

[MarkAltosaar]

I had a strange bugged cartridge of this. The game was unwinnable because the hammer would not spawn. My brother and I had no idea why we couldn't beat the game. We didn't even know what was missing.

After bashing our heads against it for years, we'd experimented by creating our saves with various Zelda character names to see if there was something like a second quest, like the infamous skip in Zelda 1. My brother for some reason played through a game titled "IMPA" and ... lo & behold, the hammer spawned in Death Mountain! Further experimenting showed that just starting a character with the first letter in the name being "I" was enough to make the game work. Bizarre.

[goatbone]

28:07 "Error II: The Adventures of Bagu"

[VideoGameAnimationStudy]

Not only is this complicated information spoken in an easy-to-understand way, it's *presented* in a concise and pleasant manner, too.
Seriously, I can only imagine how much work this took!
I hope you reach many, many more subscribers soon!

[DouglasZwick]

Dude, can I just gush for a second here? I'm a game designer, and Zelda II is one of my all-time favorite games, so I can barely find the words to describe how excited I am to get this kind of super in-depth analysis of its inner workings. Please do more on this game! Now if you'll excuse me, I have a Patreon page to go visit.

[kennylauderdale_en]

Every vid you put out continues to fascinate. Great job.

[Prophet_Google]

My wife always asks me, "Why do you still like these old games?" My response is, yeah, they are the games I grew up on. But I love watching NES games cause I slightly understand 6502. I love watching the graphics to see how things were done and music. I watch NES games with a bit of 6502 understanding and I love it.

[ShampooCell]

I'm a nascent 6502 programmer and I really appreciate your content. It's incredibly informative and easy to follow. Thank you for what you're doing.

[tommorris]

We had the same attack glitch, but ours had a right facing arrow for the value. It happened on my younger sister’s save file. We called the Nintendo hotline and asked them about it. The counselor said “Did you call earlier today because you are the second person to call about this.”

Thought it was a code my sister stumbled upon. She had it happen very early in the game. My mom and I were much farther along in our game, but had so much trouble with the Thunderbird boss we ended up using her file to beat the Thunderbird. Like you said, Shadow Link still took the regular amount of hits. Great series and video.

[niick]

My editor is famous!! I'm honored.
Great explanations and animations.

[TheHylianBatman]

I did not understand any of that, and I loved every second.
How fascinating, tearing the code apart. Everyone should be doing that.
Keep doing what you're doing, man, I loved this video.

[williamdraven]

Wow. Okay. I'm going to be honest I came here for some potential "did you know?" stuff, and walked out with a whole new level of understanding of how coding works. I'm impressed that I both enjoyed this video learning something new, AND could actually follow along with what was being taught. Props!

[Bannanawaffles]

This is incredible and exactly what we need more of on Youtube. Fantastic editing and very digestible but thorough descriptions.

[Devo_gx]

As someone who doesn’t understand a lot of code (and most certainly not assembly), you make these videos extremely easy to understand. I’m definitely fascinated by them.

[livefreeprintguns]

This is one of my favorite video games ever since I was a child and got the NES package when I was in grade school in the 80's. In fact my first time ever on Twitch I remember searching for only the three following games: SMB2, MTPO and Zelda II. Thanks for making this!

[dudeinjapan]

Holy cow, wow, I got the attack value bug too as a kid, except "A" instead of "F". In the same save, the raft was missing from the normal place you get it (but also not in my inventory) so I couldn't progress the game.

It's odd that there are many reports of attack value and missing items. Never experienced it in any other battery-backed NES game. Feel like there must be some additional factor here to explain why it happens.

[TonyDeCoste]

The YT algorithm suggested your video on 240p, I really liked your presentation style so I watched every other video you had, then I looked at your sub count and definitely had a wtf moment. You have knowledge and insight that most other gaming channels don't have and your writing is straight to the point while also being entertaining. Anyways, keep up the great work man I'm looking forward to seeing what else you come up with for us!

[EekChocolate]

Man, it's always interesting looking into this kind of old school pre-OOC style of programming in games. It's so different from how things are handled these days with engines, libraries, APIs, etc.

[AlmasyAlliances]

Definitely do more. It's truly fascinating the way they coded these old games. And your explanations are fantastic.

[ThatguycalledJoe]

25:00 - "Elevator Action"

Tee hee.