Dungeon Orders: Zelda II, The Adventure of Link (NES)

Zelda II is one of my favorite games in the series, as well as one of my favorite games of all time, and there is a lot to be said about it. Before getting into it, let's define what 'completing' a dungeon means in this game.

Fortunately, there are some really simple and obvious choices here. First, you must collect the main inventory item in the dungeon. Secondly, you must defeat the boss and/or mini-boss inside the dungeon (bosses and mini-bosses are defined as the enemies that drop Keys upon their defeat and cause the screen to stop scrolling until they are defeated). Thirdly, you must place the Crystal in the statue at the end of the dungeon. And finally, you must complete all three tasks without exiting and entering any other dungeon in between (this is to prevent you from taking an item from one dungeon and then heading off to use it to complete another). You do not have to collect any particular Keys, Magic Jars, or P-Bags within the dungeons to complete them in our definition. Conveniently, once a dungeon is 'completed' with these criteria, it turns into a mountain tile on the world map, preventing re-entry.  Of course, the definition of completing the Great Palace would include defeating Dark Link and collecting the Triforce of Courage instead of collecting an inventory item and placing a Crystal in the statue. Map images taken from http://www.kasuto.net

It's a bit harder to show you on a map, but using traditional gameplay, you *must* complete the dungeons in a specific order in this game.

• Parapa Palace in the desert can be accessed immediately.
• Midoro Palace in the swamp is blocked off from northwest Hyrule by a dark cave filled with enemies
• Island Palace is to the south of the continent

• Maze Palace is on Maze Island in northeast Hyrule, but this continent cannot be reached without the Raft
• Ocean Palace is on a small island that can only be accessed with the Boots
• Hidden Palace is in southeast Hyrule, but the dungeon will not appear until the Flute is played at the right place
• The Great Palace is in southeast Hyrule, at the very end of the lava-filled Valley of Death

Now even though it's harder, you absolutely can get through the cave to southwest Hyrule without the Candle, which would let you enter Midoro Palace and Island Palace before entering any others. Of course, you obviously need the Raft to enter any of the dungeons in east Hyrule. Or do you?

GLITCH TIME!

So there are three closely related glitches in Zelda II that we're going to have to take a look at: The Healer Glitch, Glitch Town, and Scroll Lock.

THE HEALER GLITCH

Video composed by NMaster64 of various speedrunners.

What is happening is a bit hard to describe and does not appear to be entirely understood: Every type of NPC who opens a door in the game (it can be the women who let you come in to learn a new spell, the women who restore your magic, or the women who heal you, though most often the latter is used) has a walk cycle that involves them moving to the left for 224 frames, then to the right for 224 frames, repeated endlessly.

If you talk to one of these NPCS on exactly the 125th frame as she walks left, it triggers the first stage of this glitch. Then, if you talk to her exactly 18 frames later (the last frame before she opens the door), the game gets incredibly confused. Instead of opening the regular door that leads inside her house, the NPC will be facing the wrong direction and try to open the 'wall' as you'll see in the previous video (and climb non-existent stairs). This means that, instead of sending Link to the intended location of  'inside the house', the game doesn't know where exactly the door that is open is supposed to lead. And when Link is in a town and the game doesn't know where to put him, it sends him to Glitch Town.

GLITCH TOWN

Video taken from Joe Johnson's channel.

Aside from the Healer Glitch, which wasn't truly 'discovered' outside of tool-assisted speedruns until around 2012, there is one other very well-known way to access Glitch Town: If you're in Darunia and you cast the Jump Spell, you can get above the top of the screen by jumping off of the solid rooftops in that town. If you cast the Fairy Spell while you're off-screen, it'll warp you to Glitch Town. If you do it while in a dungeon, it will instead warp you back to the entrance of that dungeon, or to the entrance of Parapa Palace, depending on where you do the glitch.

Before explaining why Glitch Town is an important glitch, let's just note that it doesn't always end with you trapped in the water like at the end of the previous video. If you entered Glitch Town from Darunia or Nabooru and entered the first building of it, then that will happen, but entering it from other towns (only possible with the Healer Glitch) will warp you to much safer locations.

• Rauru sends you to King's Tomb
• Ruto sends you to mountain tiles south of Saria, forcing you to reset
• Saria sends you to the Saria town on the other side of the river, by the entrance to Death Mountain
• Mido sends you to Bagu's Hut
• New Kasuto sends you to New Kasuto, conveniently enough
• Darunia, Nabooru, and Old Kasuto (only possible with the Scroll Lock glitch) send you to the water tiles southwest of the Valley of Death, forcing you to reset

Now, Glitch Town is a very special town for a particular reason: If you enter the first open door in Glitch Town, it simply takes you back to Glitch Town instead of into an 'inside' position. This is very important because the game doesn't expect Link to enter a door so many times in a row without going outside (the most possible without glitching is twice, going inside in New Kasuto and from there, going inside the fireplace to where you learn the Spell Spell), so the game gets incredibly confused when you continue to enter doors when it's not programmed to expect that. Once you enter the Glitch Town door five times, the 'door entry' code overwrites some of the 'Link's position' code, creating the Scroll Lock glitch.

SCROLL LOCK AND WRONG WARPING

Video taken from Jerkwad152's channel.

Scroll Lock has a few interesting effects, some of which you can see in the video.

• Whenever you enter a side-scrolling section (fixed encounter on the map, random enemy encounter, town, or dungeon) you will start on the far left side of the screen. This includes simply moving from screen to screen in towns, dungeons, or caves.
• The screen will no longer scroll left while in a side-scrolling section. If you try to exit the screen to the left, it will warp you to a particular location (doing this is called a 'Wrong Warp').
• If you're in a town, it will warp you to Glitch Town. Wrong Warping in Glitch Town will take you to the previously mentioned location for whichever town you entered.
• If you're in a dungeon, it will take you to whatever room is left of your current room. If there is no room to the left, it will take you back to the dungeon's entrance.
• In some fixed encounters or caves, it will take you to another specific location, depending on what fixed encounter you entered.
• It will have no effect on random encounters, you simply leave the battle as normal.
• You can no longer learn new spells or sword techniques. The knights and wise men who normally teach you these will not appear due to the Scroll Lock (While you can force them to appear under these conditions, it requires repeated pressing of left and right simultaneously, and is therefore impossible on an unmodified NES controller).

Wrong Warping can be incredibly useful, though limiting at the same time because you can't learn spells while under it. Not every fixed encounter leads to a new place, but these are the relevant ones that I know of.

• The Death Mountain cave with the Magic Container sends you to a Maze Island fixed encounter location.
• The Heart Container on a water tile in east Hyrule sends you to the cave east of the River Devil.
• The cave east of the River Devil sends you to the southeast cave that links to New Kasuto, on the side with New Kasuto's forest.
• The southeast cave connecting that part of Hyrule with New Kasuto sends you to the Great Palace.
• The northeast cave that links Nabooru to the north forests of Hyrule sends you to the cave outside the swamp in southeast Hyrule.
• The cave outside the swamp in southeast Hyrule sends you to the cave leading to the Great Palace.
• The first cave in the Valley of Death sends you to the hidden P-Bag in the Valley of Death. The second cave in the Valley of Death sends you to this same point.
• The last cave in the Valley of Death sends you to the first cave in the Valley of Death.
• Any of the fixed encounters in the Valley of Death send you to the water tiles southeast of it, forcing you to reset. Entering these encounters from the right instead of the left gets you stuck in the wall, also forcing you to reset.

So as cool as Scroll Lock is, outside of dungeons it only has a few practical uses: Warping you from Rauru to King's Tomb, from Death Mountain to Maze Island, from northeast Hyrule to southeast Hyrule, and from southeast Hyrule straight to the Great Palace.

ANALYSIS

So let's look at each dungeon in particular to see its limitations. As we've seen, using the Scroll Lock glitch means we can access Parapa Palace, Midoro Palace, Island Palace, Maze Palace, and the Great Palace right away. Which of them can we complete immediately? Fortunately, this list is easier to compile than for most Zelda games, since the majority of dungeon items only affect the overworld.

Parapa Palace can obviously be completed with no special items, as it was designed to be the first location the player goes to. No special items are needed to complete it.

Midoro Palace can be accessed early with or without using Scroll Lock, and can be completed immediately, since the Candle from Parapa Palace does nothing in dungeons.

Island Palace can be entered immediately, but there is a solid wall of blocks between you and the Raft, and another between you and the boss. Since the Raft and the boss are both to the right of their respective rooms and the Scroll Lock only takes you to the extreme left of each room, even using that glitch won't allow you to complete this dungeon early. This means that you absolutely cannot complete this dungeon without the Handy Glove.

Maze Palace can be glitched into early with the Scroll Lock glitch, but the dungeon's boss, Carock, can only be defeated with the Reflect Spell. You learn this spell in Darunia, in northeast Hyrule, which you can only access with the Raft or a Wrong Warp. Since you can't learn spells while under the effects of Scroll Lock, you cannot complete this dungeon until you can enter eastern Hyrule without the Scroll Lock glitch, which means you must have the Raft.

Ocean Palace is located on a small island that has no other fixed encounters on it, which means there is absolutely no way to glitch onto it with Scroll Lock. The only way to access this dungeon is with the Boots.

Hidden Palace is in southeast Hyrule, but will not appear on the map until you have the Whistle, so you cannot possibly enter this dungeon without the Flute.

Great Palace can be entered with the Scroll Lock glitch, and you can use the dungeon Wrong Warp glitch to skip the binding force that would normally kill you if you try to get past it before placing all six crystals in the statues: Simply scroll the screen slightly to the right and then walk off-screen to the left to be placed in the room below the elevator. From there, you can mostly complete the dungeon as normal with only one small flaw: Because the screen is positioned slightly to the left while under Scroll Lock, the fight with Thunderbird will not trigger in the usual spot, but instead will start almost a full screen length to the right, when the pedestal you normally fight it on is almost entirely scrolled off-screen.
    First of all, this means you'll need to cast both the Jump Spell and the Thunder Spell to defeat Thunderbird, which requires level 7 magic or higher. Secondly, remember that in this game when a boss is defeated, a Key will drop into the center of the screen, and the screen will not scroll again until you pick that Key up. While under the effects of Scroll Lock, we'll be too far to the right to even see the Key fall, much less pick it up. This means that we're stuck in this room until we reset the game.
    There are certainly ways to finish the game while under Scroll Lock, but they all involve skipping the fight with Thunderbird, which goes against our 'defeat the boss' rule for completing a dungeon, so we cannot use Scroll Lock to glitch into the Great Palace early.

FINAL RESULTS!

• From the start -> Parapa Palace, Midoro Palace
• After Midoro Palace -> Island Palace
• After Island Palace -> Maze Palace
• After Maze Palace -> Ocean Palace
• After Ocean Palace -> Hidden Palace
• Last -> Great Palace