Proto:The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time/Late 1997 Overdump
This is a sub-page of Proto:The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time.
An unsuspecting F-Zero X development cartridge from NoA Product Testing was released on January 19, 2021 by Forest of Illusion. While the data for F-Zero X on the cart is identical to the retail US version, it's decidedly more notable for containing a substantial amount of an Ocarina of Time prototype, starting at 0x1000000 in the slack space (0x19A4470 onward is empty).
Various assets suggest that this build was either the playable demo seen at SpaceWorld '97 or was built very soon after the event. This is also proven by the fact that the ROM's size is 32MB, as opposed to other prototypes which are 65MB due to containing decompressed assets.
Unfortunately, all audio data and a bunch of other essential data was completely overwritten with F-Zero X (due to how early it's stored in the ROM). Still, what's left here - including textures, models, text, and maps - isn't insubstantial.
Sub-Pages
 | Scenario The story structure at this point in development, as suggested by the resources gathered. |
 | 3D Maps A lot of early stuff in here, some of which was seen in pre-release screenshots and footage. |
 | Unused Textures Early weapon icons, menus, and more. |
 | Text A dump of the build's text boxes. |
| IDs Differences between IDs in the final version and the prototype, for objects and actors. |
Landmine
The assets revealed the existence of Landmines, a previously-unknown scrapped item. It was presumably replaced by Bombchus, which are not present in this build.
| Icon | In-Game Text | Translation |
|---|---|---|
|
地雷を手に入れた！ Ｃでセットし、触れると爆発！ Ｂで投げても爆発するぞ！ |
You got some Landmines! Set them to C, and they'll explode on contact! They'll also go off if you throw them with B! |
Map Prerenders
At the very beginning of the Zelda data are these two faces of a cubemap for the Know-It-All Brothers' House, one of which has been partially lost. These images use the last two of four palettes stored immediately after the second image, hinting that two more faces of the cube and the rest of the first one above are missing due to being overwritten by F-Zero X.
Title Screen Cutscene
Within the overdump is data for a cutscene that was apparently used for the demo's title screen. It is an earlier take on Link's nightmare at the beginning of the game.
This particular version can be found within the final build, albeit in a more refined state.
