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List of Unused Glitches
On this page you will find unused but interesting glitches. All glitches not on any other pages are welcome.
Light Glitch
This glitch sometimes happen in speedruns, and some routes will make it more common than others. Reasons are not known, but sometimes the light effects glitch to the point that they can be seen through everything, including walls and floors.
Grab Slide Clipping
Discovered by Kazooie
On ledges you can grab but not climb up due to there being collision above the ledge, you can usually clip through that piece of collision using this method. Grab the ledge then go either to the right or to the left, then immediately hold up on the control stick. While you are holding up, Link will continue going sideways on the ledge, until it reaches the end of it. He will then climb up and clip through the collision that's above the ledge.
This trick has one good use in Ganon's Tower: it can be used to clip through Phantom Ganon's Wall.
Iron Boots High Jumping
Discovered by LegendOfLinkk
Go to a ledge which makes Link perform a small hop. Equip Iron Boots and walk forward to get that hop. Force unequip the iron boots on the very first frame of the jump by equipping over it. This will make Link jump higher than normal. Because this is still a rather small jump, there is currently no known uses.
This glitch is also called Moonjumping.
Leafing faster by force-unequipping Iron Boots
Discovered by Froztbite
Normally, the leafing speed is capped at 12 speed. However, by pulling out the leaf while wearing iron boots and then equipping over the boots to unequip them you can skip the speed cap applying. Thus you will be able to glide at 24 speed, slowly decreasing to 12.
As a bonus, this method of starting to leaf around also skips losing the very first bit of magic normally needed to start leafing. You still need magic to be able to start it though.
This trick has a useful application in Ganon's Tower.
Backflip Glitches
There are several glitches related to backflipping.
- Performing a backflip on the first frame after climbing up a ledge results in a backflip with very low height and back distance (called a lowflip)
- Performing a backflip on the first frame after bonking results in a backflip in place (called a gainer or silent backflip)
- Performing a backflip right after pulling a bomb results in a glitchy feet animation
Glitched Arrow Shots
By cancelling an arrow shot on the very first frame after the arrow fires by either pressing A or pulling your sword, the arrow will shoot in a strange direction. The direction depends on the way you cancel the arrow shot.
Glitched Grapple Throw
By throwing the grappling hook on the first frame after landing from a sidehop, the grapple will go in the direction that is away from where the camera is, instead of in front of Link like it normally should.
C-Up Clipping Pick-Up Objects through walls
Discovered by iwabi74
With your back against a wall and while holding any object, enter first person and look into the sky. Press B twice to both leave C-Up and let go of the object, and it will clip through the wall behind you. This works with most object Link can pick up, with a couple exceptions like frozen enemies and tower of the gods statues.
An alternate method of clipping pick-up objects through walls is to run in a circle with Link in order to make him tilt. This tilt can be used to drop objects through walls as well. This is much more difficult to do in practice.
Weightless Objects
Discovered by Majora MIM
Catch some forest water in a bottle and wait for the timer to run down. Before the timer expires, lift a heavy object like a boulder, Jalhalla, etc. Wait for the timer to expire and you can now walk while carrying the heavy object.
Bomb Flower Displacement
By picking up a bomb flower while having some speed, its home can be moved around based on Link's position.
Another bomb flower related glitch can occur by picking up a bomb flower on the same frame it gets hit by something else. This will "duplicate" the bomb flower (as in it will be in Link's hand while also there being a new one at its home).
Hookshot Actor Displacement
Discovered by TrogWW
This glitch works with the headstones inside the Wind Temple. Hookshot a headstone but turn the camera away from the headstone after hookshotting it. If the hookshot connects but then the headstone unloads due to the camera being away, turning the camera back to the headstone will get it to snap to Link. This glitch can be used to move those objects around the Wind Temple.
Magic Armor Shaking
Discovered by LegendOfLinkk
By using the magic armour in the middle of a jump, Link will start shaking. This is only visual: your real position doesn't change, only your push collision does. This works even if you have no magic to use the magic armor.
Fadeout Warp to Six Eye Reef
If GAME is too fragmented when entering one of the big islands (like Windfall, FF2, Outset, DRI...), there is a fadeout that reloads the ocean. If you enter the fadeout while swimming, KoRL will respawn at 6 eye reef. You can then savewarp to get warped there.
See Fadeouts on the Actor Unloading page for more information on the fadeout.
Dark Picture
Discovered by bowserisbored
If you take a picture right as a fadeout happens (see Fadeouts on the Actor Unloading page), a completely dark picture will be saved.
Mapfish Dark Screen
Discovered by FrostOSS
Sail near a mapfish. Go in free cam mode. Jump out of the boat near a mapfish and pull out the leaf. The screen will go completely dark, due to a division by 0, until you reload the area or pull out the wind waker.
Exit ID 00 Warp
By dying on the exact same frame as you void out, you will respawn at the exit ID 00 of the current stage instead of the normal respawn location. Using storage you can make this slightly easier as you can then void a few frames after dying and it will work as well.
Currently, the only known ways to do this is by throwing a statue, Medli or Makar in a pit to trigger the void; or by clipping OoB on the overworld travelling pirate ship map. Theoretically, doing this trick in most places will crash the game as many places don't even have a stage exit ID 00 to begin with. Some will crash because they try to send you to an invalid entrance (usually to the test map I_TestM or Grandma's house LinkRM). Among the more useful theoretical warps, doing this anywhere on ADMumi will send you to ADMumi but at the bell.
Floormaster Text Storage Clip
Discovered by Froztbite
If you cancel the getting caught by a floormaster cutscene with Text Storage, you will clip underground.
Niko Glitch
Discovered by Klydestorm, figured out by azer67
In the first rope jumping minigame inside the pirate ship for the Spoils Bag, Niko jumps on top of a switch to raise the platforms. The way Niko knows where to jump is by searching for the switch actor in the heap by name. There are two switches inside the pirate ship, and Niko will always get the coordinates of the first one it finds in the heap. Usually this works fine, as the switch he jumps on is supposed to load first. However, if the other switch manages to load first instead, then Niko will attempt to jump onto the wrong switch, failing to land on it, and aborting the tutorial cutscene. The cutscene will usually play fine afterwards once Link steps onto the switch and the platform raising cutscene plays, but you can also press the switch by placing a barrel on top of it, in which case the platform raising cutscene won't play, and this allows skipping the tutorial cutscene completely for the spoils bag.
There are several caveats to this glitch :
- There are currently no known ways of getting the switches to load in the opposite order currently, and getting this to happen randomly is incredibly rare.
- After doing this glitch and opening the spoils bag chest, you will not get Tetra's call textbox to appear. This is problematic as this skips a flag that allows both savewarping to Forsaken Fortress 1, and leaving the pirate ship to Forsaken Fortress 1. Thus this is a softlock if performed after leaving Outset normally. This is only useful after performing Outset Escape, and only if you are not interested in going to FF1 after getting the spoils bag.
After Niko glitch, if you press the switch to raise the platforms with a barrel, then press the switch to lower them with Link, the cutscene of the platforms lowering will play, and this will make Niko continue with the tutorial, except with the platforms lowered. Niko will perform a funny looking double jump and won't grab the rope, causing a softlock.
Solving the Hyrule Block Puzzle with One Block
Discovered by Deadeyesx311, Only on the Japanese Version
Bid Over 1000 rupees at Auction
Bid 996 or 997 rupees and let one of the NPCs bid 999 or 1000 rupees. You can now bid 1000 rupees or more.
This only works on the Japanese version. On the US and PAL versions, if you bid 990 rupees or more then the NPCs will never bid again.
Failed Full Delivery Bag check at Zunari's Shop
The line of code that checks if your delivery bag is full when buying trade items is wrong. It checks if the item you're buying has an id both equal to that of the town flower and the shop guru statue at the same time, which is of course always false, instead of checking if the item bought has an id found in between that of the town flower and the shop guru statue. This means that if you have a full delivery bag and fewer than 3 trade items in it, you can just buy trade items forever from Zunari and depleting your rupee amount, without actually obtaining anything.
Buttslide Softlock
Play the Wind's Requiem on a slippery slope. This causes Link to buttslide in place, causing a softlock.
It is also possible to have very long buttslides by entering slippery slopes with a ton of speed, but they usually end, and you can still pause during them, which you can't after wind's requiem.
Light Arrows related Glitches
If you first cut a Stalfos in half then use the light arrows on the head, the Stalfos won't be recognized as defeated. In Overlook and Savage Labyrinth, this makes you unable to beat the room. Thus you should only use light arrows on a Stalfos before cutting it in half.
If you use light arrows against the Miniblins in the Shark Island Secret Cave, their death switch won't be set and thus the fight won't continue and you have to reload the room.
Light Arrows work against Jalhalla but they don't work correctly against the jalhalla poes. If you use light arrows on a jalhalla poe, the poe will vanish but will reappear in the next phase. The cutscene of Jalhalla refomring himself is also longer.
Light Arrows heal Gohma.
Use Light Arrows in the Refights
Only on the Japanese Version
Normally, when entering a normal trial, the game switches your inventory back to what you had when you first defeated the boss (see File Item Transfer). However, on the japanese version, it doesn't reset on what arrow type of the arrow wheel you are on. Thus, if you enter the Jalhalla or Molgera refight with the arrow wheel on the light arrows, you can use light arrows in the refights despite not having them anymore.
Make Blue Chus unable to damage Link
Use the hookshot on a blue chu and it won't be able to damage you anymore unless you actually attck it with your sword or hammer. This doesn't work with yellow chus. This only works because the blue chu never jumps towards Link, which fixes the glitch with yellow chus.
Picture Deletion Glitch
All versions except PAL
When showing a good picture to either Carlov the figurine maker or Lenzo, these npcs take it and the picture is deleted. On both the japanese and american versions of the game, the developers forgot to update the flags (mPictureFlag) telling the game that the pictures need to be saved again on the memory card when the save process occurs, and instead only the amount of carried pictures is updated. Thus, if you give a good picture saved in slot 1 or 2 on both JPN and US to Carlov or Lenzo, and then immediately save and quit and reload, the picture given to them can reappear in the slot it previously was saved in.
The related mPictureFlag are found at address 0x803BDCF7 on JPN. There are three bits, one for each picture slot. If one of these is set to 1 when saving occurs, the game will update and save the corresponding picture slot properly. It will not save pictures in the slots for which the corresponding mPictureFlag is still set to 0. These flags are set to 0 on file start. There are two ways to set them to 1: firstly, deleting any picture during the play session will set all three bits to 1 and this will cause all the pictures to get saved properly, avoiding the glitch ; and secondly, both taking a new picture and buying a legendary pictograph from Lenzo will only set mPictureFlag to 1 for the corresponding slot the picture ends up in.
The game also applies another check as protection. When either Carlov or Lenzo takes a picture, the game writes the slot number of the taken picture to the story flag array. This is so the game knows which of the three pictures was deleted on your file when it reads your save data, thus no glitch occurs if you save with this story flag set. This flag can however be unset by simply opening and closing the pictobox normally, and this causes the picture in slot 3 to be deleted instead of whatever it was supposed to be.
Thus, for the picture to reappear in your pictobox after giving it to Carlov or Lenzo and performing a savewarp, the following two statements must be true: you must have never deleted any picture during that play session, and you must not have taken a picture in the slot that picture is in during the play session, meaning that picture must have already been there when the file was started. Show the picture you want to see reappear to them, then just open and close the pictobox. Save, quit and reload your file, and that picture will be back where it was. This has a side effect of deleting a different picture instead.
This glitch was patched on PAL. On that version, the picture deletion function used by Carlov and Lenzo now updates all three mPictureFlag bits to 1 to prevent this.
More Camera Locks
In addition to the camera lock with the wind waker, there exists some other ways to lock the camera:
- You can pull an item over your head while having storage (like the sail or a letter for example), to have a form of camera lock that is in front and above Link. It is not useful.
- While having control of Medli or Makar, get an enemy to hit both Medli/Makar and Link at once, in order to get the Medli/Makar camera while controlling Link.
Frozen Enemies Knockback
Discovered by LegendofLinkk
After freezing an enemy, picking it up and throwing it, Link can sometimes get knocked back without taking damage. This happens with Morths or Keeses for example.
Escape Big Octo fights
Cruise or sail into a big octo fight but leave the boat right before the fight triggers. You can start the fight without being on your boat. With camera lock, you can superswim away and avoid getting sucked by the whirlpool. If you leave the quadrant the fight stops. If you stay in the quadrant but go too far away from the Octo, it will unload, and it will reload by going closer again. The fight music continues to play until you reload the area or trigger another music.
Whirlpool Clipping
Discovered by Froztbite
Entering a whirlpool will give KoRL clipping properties. You can use this to clip him through Outset Island. Unfortunately you cannot exit the boat while inside a whirlpool.
Stuck Parry Glitch
Discovered by KlydeStorm
Use the leaf on a mothula performing his dive attack. The parry attack will stay stuck and you will be able to perform it whenever and wherever you want as long as you can target the mothula. The parry goes away if you land a hit or if you reload the room.
Triangle Attribute Glitch
The game keeps track of which floor triangle you are above as you are in the air. If you land at the very edge of a ledge in a very precise way you can get the game to consider you grounded without actually updating which floor triangle you are on. Thus the game can sometimes read the collision attribute of the triangle Link was above right before landing on the ledge. This can cause Link to burn from lava or void-out despite not getting near them at all, if the triangle below the ledge is lava-type or void-type, because for that one frame it can consider you to be on the lava/void floor triangle.
Dupe Lava Particles in DRC
Discovered by LegendOfLinkk
In Dragon Roost Cavern, you can dupe lava particles by changing room when a lava geyser is up with a platform on it.
Snow Anywhere
Discovered by LegendOfLinkk
Get Storage and shoot a fire arrow at Ice Ring. Start sailing and unload Ice Ring at the same time as the fire arrow connects. Storage will cancel the cutscene, and you will be able to move around, but now it is snowing around you, no matter where you go.
Beedle's ship infinite bomb explosions
Discovered by takoya saito
Moblin Siren Glitch
Get caught by a moblin and die or reset at the same time. The jingle will still be playing after the loading zone.
Gossip Stone Dives Softlocks
Diving with a gossip stone text softlocks the game. This can either happen in FF1 by triggering the gossip stone text underwater, or in TotG by getting pushed off by the statue in the room before the bow.
Invincible Bokoblin
Boomerang a bokoblin while it's hanging off a ledge. It will fall and die from fall damage without dying. Thus attacking him will make the fatal blow sound and he won't die.
Frozen Bubble Glitch
Freeze a fire bubble and pick it up before it falls and shatters. Now wait for it to unfreeze. You will be holding a live bubble with no fire. Put it down to free the bubble (which won't be in fire anymore). Such a bubble keeps its frozen property, so by using the leaf or the hookshot to turn it into a normal skull temporarely, you can use it to press switches (which a normal bubble or skull cannot do).
Poe Hookshot & Grappling Hook Stun Glitch
Discovered by Pikpikmate
Use the grappling hook on a poe, then hookshot it. It will get stuck in an idle state until it is hit again.
Done on the Jalhalla Poes, this can be used to duplicate them.
Rat Item Glitch
If you kill a rat on the same frame it tries to pick up a rupee (or any item), and you collect the rupee, the rupee will become impossible to collect despite being still visually there. Sometimes the rupee will also look skewed, and sometimes the rupee will slide slowly on the ground as well.
Trigger Events Early in TotG with Door Storage
Discovered by LegendofLinkk
Going into the compass chest room in TotG with KoRL text stored, and then re-entering the hub room by canceling the door opening animation on the first two frames using the textbox, the events for stopping the waterfall and for the gate to the small key room opening both play early, without their normal requirements fulfilled.
When you start loading the hub room, the actors that represents the statues being placed, daObjTry, temporarily load in for a few frames before quicly despawning. The actor that checks for the statues to be placed, daObjCorrect, only checks to see if they are placed while the game is not actively running an event.
By interrupting the door opening animation early enough, daObjCorrect detects daObjTry being placed before they despawn, and activates the switches for the gate and waterfall.
