Zelda 2 Randomizer

Randomization Options

ROM File

Click the browse button to locate a copy of the Zelda II ROM file. I do not and will not supply ROM files, nor will I tell people where they may be acquired.

Seed

This seed determines which random values will be used to create a ROM. If you use the same seed, the same options, and the same ROM file, you should generate the same randomized ROM.

Flags

Flags are a convenient way of tracking which options are selected. As you select which randomization options you want, the flags will automatically update. If you copy the text that is in the flags box and give it to someone else, they can paste those flags into their client and see the options that have been selected.

Check For Updates

Clicking this button will automatically update the client if an update is available.

Custom Flag Sets

These options can be used to save your own custom flags so that they are easily accessible. Clicking one of the Save buttons will take the flags currently in the flag box at the top and save them to one of the custom flag slots. The load button will load the flags from the custom slot into the randomizer.

Start Configuration Options

Shuffle Starting Items

Each item has a 25% chance of being in your inventory at the start of the game.

Shuffle Starting Spells

Each spell has a 25% chance of being known at the start of the game.

Starting Heart Containers

How many bars of health you start the game with. No heart containers are added or removed.

Max Heart Containers

This option specifies what the maximum number of heart containers will be. The randomizer will insert or remove heart containers as needed. For example, if you choose to start with 4 hearts with a maximum of 4 hearts, there will not be any additional heart containers in the game. If you choose to start with 1 heart with a maximum of 8 hearts, the game will add 3 heart containers, bringing the total number of in game heart containers to 7. When the game requires more hearts than normal, items will begin to appear in the pbag caves (1 pbag cave in the west, 2 in the east, see below for details).

Starting Level

This option allows you to select which attack/magic/life level you start the game with.

Randomize Number of Lives

Each continuous credit may have anywhere between 2 and 5 lives.

Overworld Options

General Overworld Rules

The following guarantees are given:

General

• You will be able to access every item and every town and palace, however there may be some non-essential locations that are not accessible.
• Each location will use its proper terrain type. Towns will look like towns, caves will look like caves, etc. (with the possible exception of the vanilla maps, see below)

Death Mountain

• There will be one rock, which is guaranteed to contain one of the two items

Maze Island

• There will always be two items on Maze Island

Guarantees

It is guaranteed that you will be able to reach every normally accessible location on the world map. That means if you need a spell (like jump or fairy) or an item (like the hammer or the flute) to access certain areas of the map, you a guaranteed to be able to get those spells or items before you need to access those areas. It also means you are guaranteed to be able to collect every spell and item in the game.

Here are some helpful tips for navigating the overworld map:

• Anywhere that requires the jump spell can also be maneuvered with the fairy spell.

• The bridge in Saria can be crossed if you have the fairy spell.

• Chimneys and doors can be entered as a fairy. To enter a door, cast fairy while standing on the ground and make sure the fairy is touching the ground when you try to enter the door. To enter a chimney, crouch before casting fairy and then fly into the chimney.

• You can use the boots to cross from the northern section of East Hyrule to the middle section of East Hyrule.

Allow palaces to Swap Continents

Typically, palaces 1, 2, and 3 are found in the west, 4 is on Maze Island, and 5 and 6 are in the east. When this option is selected, any palace can show up on any continent, with the exception of palace 7 which will always be in the Valley of Death on the eastern continent (unless you use the Great Palace shuffle option, see below). Each continent will still have the same number of palaces: 3 in the west, 1 on maze island, and 3 in the east.

Include Great Palaces in Shuffle

When selected, the Great Palace does not have to appear in the Valley of Death (though it still could). It can now appear in any spot that a palace would normally appear.

Shuffle Encounters

Shuffling encounters means that a swamp encounter may lead you to a desert encounter or a forest encounter instead. Allow unsafe path encounters means you may get a graveyard or or forest encounter even if you are standing on the road tiles.

Encounter Rate

This option allows you to specify how often the random overworld encounters appear. Normal means they will spawn at the normal rate, 50% means they will spawn half as often as normal, or you can turn them off entirely.

Hidden Palace

This option will add three eye rock to the overworld. This means you must acquire the flute to gain access to a palace. The location blocked by the horn will always be a palace. If palace shuffle is on, it can be any palace, otherwise, it will be palace 6.

Note that sometimes the palace does not get drawn on the map right away. This is something that will hopefully be fixed in future updates.

Hidden Kasuto

This option will hide New Kasuto behind a forest tile. When the tile is hit with a hammer, New Kasuto will appear. You will know you have found the forest tile when you step on it and nothing happens. The town behind the forest tile will always be New Kasuto.

Shuffle Which Location(s) are Hidden

If Hidden Palace and/or Hidden Kasuto are on, this option will randomize which location is hidden. The hidden location cannot be a continent connection, passthrough cave (though it can be an item cave), but it can be any other location including towns and palaces.

Hide Less Important Locations

If this option is selected, locations that are not "important" (meaning they are not a town, palace, connection cave, or contain an item) will blend in with the surrounding terrain meaning that they will not be easily seen on the map.

Restrict Connection Cave Shuffle

When this option is selected, caves will be placed in a more logical way, such that the entrance of a cave will point to where the other side of the cave is. For example, if you enter a cave going north, you know that when you exit the other side of the cave you will be directly north of where you went in. The distance between cave exits is also restricted, such that you can often see the exit before entering the cave.

Allow Connection Caves to be Boulder Blocked

When this option is selected, the boulder blocked caves on the western continent may be blocked by boulders. Space is provided to turn around so that exiting a boulder blocked cave will not lead to a softlock.

All Water is Walkable with Boots

When this option is selected, all water within the map will be walkable upon collecting the boots. When this option is turned off, very little of the water will be walkable, even with the boots. The water that will be walkable when this option is turned off includes:

• The river on Maze Island
• The water tile on the East
• "Water bridges" that are marked with a road tile on either side

Generate Bagu's Woods

When this option is selected, Bagu's house will be hidden and surrounded by the lost woods encounters. The Lost Woods encounters will appear in a roughly 3 tile radius from Bagu. In addition, the sleeping bot in Saria will give you a clue as to Bagu's location.

Continent Connections

Normal continent connections keep them similar to the vanilla game: raft connects east and west, two caves connect the west to death mountain, and there's a bridge to Maze Island in the east.

R+B Border Shuffle keeps the connections on the same continent, but allows the raft and maze island bridge to appear on any border of the map, instead of the normal positions.

Transportation Shuffle keeps the same connections between continents, but randomizes the mode of transportation used. For example, there's typically a raft connection between west and east, but with this option on it may be a cave or bridge connection between west and east instead.

Anything goes allows continent connections to appear in an position and allows continents to be connected in any way. The Maze Island bridge might connect death mountain to the west, for example.

Note that when vanila maps are used, their continent connectors will be the same as they were in vanilla. So if you have a vanilla western continent, for example, it will contain a raft spot as well as two caves that will take you to other continents.

Biomes

Vanilla is the original map, with all locations in their original places

Vanilla (shuffled) is the original map, with locations shuffled

Vanilla-Like attempts to randomly generate a map with the same general characteristics of the vanilla map.

Islands generates a series of islands that are connected by caves and bridges

Canyon generates a map with a river going down the middle surrounded by mountains

Caldera generates a mountainous lake that contains a palace.

Volcano places a giant volcano in the middle of the map that contains a palace.

Mountainous maps have pockets of terrain nestled in the mountains that are connected by narrow mountain passes.

Random (no Vanilla) will randomly select the Islands, Canyon, Caldera, Volcano, or Mountainous Biome.

Random (with Vanilla) will randomly select any of the available biomes.

Shuffled Vanilla Locations Show Actual Terrain

If a shuffled vanilla map is used, this option will make the shuffled locations show their actual terrain, instead of the original vanilla terrain.

Palace Options

Palace Rooms

You are guaranteed to be able to reach every room in every palace. A connection between two rooms will be the same in both directions - if you enter a room and turn around you will always go back to the previous room.

Keys

It is possible that you will not be able to acquire enough keys to unlock every door. This means you may (and probably will) need to rely on the fairy spell to get past locked doors.

Fallthrough maps

Certain rooms in palaces allow the player to fall through the floor. These fallthroughs only allow the player to move through them in one direction, so they deserve special consideration. It is guaranteed that a fallthrough will always allow a player to exit the level - either through the entrance or through the exit after the boss. It is possible to get stuck in palace 4 because of these fallthroughs. If you go down a fallthrough in palace 4, it is possible that the only way to get out of the palace is through Carock. If you do not have the reflect spell, then you will be unable to defeat Carock and will have to Up+A to leave the palace.

Palace Style

Vanilla uses the original palaces from the game

Shuffled uses all of the original rooms from the original palaces, but moves them around. The palaces will be the same size as they are in the original game.

Reconstructed will construct new palaces from scratch. These palaces will be +/- 25% of the size from the original palaces. It will only contain vanilla rooms (unless the community rooms option is selected, see below), however it is possible that the rooms will come from different palaces, or even show up multiple times within the same palace. This option attempts to make palaces in a similar fashion to the original game:

Palace 1 - no blockers
Palace 2 - may be glove or jump blocked
Palace 3 - may be glove or downstab blocked
Palace 4 - may contain drops, may be fairy blocked
Palace 5 - may be fairy blocked
Palace 6 - may contain drops, may be fairy or glove blocked

Include Community Rooms

If reconstructed palaces are being used, this option will put rooms created by the Zelda 2 community into the room pool. These rooms do not show up in the original game, and may contain configurations unlike what is seen in the original game.

Blocking Rooms can Appear in any Palace

If this option is selected, the reconstructed palaces can contain and blocking rooms at any time.

Boss Rooms Exit to Palace

If this option is selected, the boss rooms in a reconstructed palace will not lead outside, rather they will lead to more palace rooms. It is possible for an item to be blocked behind a boss when this option is on.

Shorten Great Palace

This option removes at least a quarter and up to half of the rooms in great palace. It selects which rooms to remove at random. It will only remove rooms that have exactly two exits. It will not remove any rooms with pits, or any room that is a landing spot for a pit.

Thunderbird Required

If this option is checked, then Thunderbird will be blocking the path to Dark Link in palace 7. If this option is unchecked, it is still possible that Thunderbird is blocking the path to Dark Link - the randomizer does not check where Thunderbird is in this case.

Remove Thunderbird

This option will remove Thunderbird from the game entirely, meaning that Thunderbird will not be required to beat the game.

Change Palace Palettes

When this option is selected, the palace colors and brick tiles will be shuffled. You can still determine which palace you are in by checking the Iron Knuckle statue at the beginning (1, and 5 have no items, 2 will always be a jar, 3, 4, and 6 have a 50% chance of being a jar and a 50% chance of being a red Iron Knuckle) and by the room layouts.

Number of Palaces to Complete

This is essentially the number of gems you start the game with. You may enter palace 7 as soon as you run out of gems (even if you never had any). This is a double edged sword: fewer gems means you will not get as many experience bonuses at the end of palaces.

Restart at Palaces on Game Over

When this option is selected, if you game over or Up+A in any palace, you will restart at the entry screen to that palace, just like in palace 7.

Randomize Boss Item Drop

When this option is selected, the key that is normally dropped after killing a boss will be randomized into another small item.

Guarantees

You are guaranteed to be able to reach every room and every item in every palace. It is guaranteed that there will be a path to the entrance or exit of the palace from every room in the palace, with one possible exception (see the Fallthrough section, above). Here are some tips for navigating palaces:

• Keys that are collected in one palace can be used in a different palace.

• If you fairy through a door then find a key, you can use Up+A to save that key instead of spending it to get back out.

• If you try to fairy through a door when you have a key, you will still spend a key to get through the door.

• Bosses and mini bosses drop keys that can be used in other parts of the palace.

• If you need to, you can use fairy to get through the key door at the end of a palace and place the gem.

• If a boss or item room is normally entered from a certain direction, it will still be that way in the randomizer. For example, in palace 1 you enter the candle room from the right, but you enter the boss room from the left. That means if you come to a room and have an option of going left or right, you will likely have a higher chance of finding the candle by going left, and a higher chance of finding the boss by going right.

Levels and Spells

Shuffle Experience Needed

This shuffles how much experience is needed for each level. The values range from -25% to +25% of their normal values. It is guaranteed that each level will cost more than the previous level.

Level Cap

This option allows you to set the maximum attack/magic/life level that can be reached. Any levels above the maximum will grant 1ups.

Scale Level Requirements to Cap

If a level cap is used, this option will scale the experience requirements to the new level cap. For example, if attack is capped at level 3, with this option off the experience needed to get attack 2 and 3 would be the same as normal. With this option on, however, attack 2 would require about 4000xp and attack 3 would require about 8000xp.

Shuffle Effectiveness

Attack

• Random attack changes the attack power of each level by +/- 50% with the exception of level 1, which cannot be less than 2.
• Low attack halves all normal attack values.
• High attack adds 50% to all normal attack values.
• OHKO Enemies makes all enemies and bosses die in one hit, except for dark link.

Magic

• Random magic changes the spell cost of each spell by +/- 50% for each level.
• Low magic halves all normal spell costs
• High magic add 50% to all normal magic values.
• Free spells makes all spell costs 0.

Life

• Random life changes the amount of damage Link takes at each level by +/- 50%
• OHKO Link makes Link die in one hit from any enemy.
• High Defense reduces all damage taken by half.
• Invincible makes Link take no damage.

Spells

Shuffle Life Refill Amount

The life spell will give the player anywhere between 1-5 bars of health when this option is checked.

Shuffle Spell Locations

This will change what spells you find in towns. The number of magic containers required to get a spell depends on what town you are in. The requirements are as follows:

Nabooru - 5 containers Darunia - 6 containers New Kasuto - 7 containers Old Kasuto - 8 containers

This does not affect any items that you may need to get a spell. You still need the trophy to get the spell in Ruto, for example.

Disable Magic Container Requirements

When selected, this option eliminates the magic container requirements necessary to get spells (see above). This means you could get the spell in Old Kasuto with only 4 containers, for example.

Combine Fire with a Random Spell

When selected, this will choose one of the other 7 spells (it will not randomly choose fire) and add those abilities to the fire spell. This leads to fire having two effects, for example fire + fairy, fire + spell, etc.

Randomize Spell Spell Enemy

When this option is selected, the enemy that is generated when casting the Spell spell will be randomized.

Replace Fire with Dash Spell

This option removes the Fire spell from the game and replaces it with Dash. The Dash spell makes Link move twice as fast for one screen. The magic cost of the Dash spell is the same as for the Fire spell.

Guarantees

You are guaranteed to be able to get every spell in the game. If you need a certain item or a certain amount of magic containers, it will be possible to get that item and/or the required number of containers before you need to use that spell.

Enemies

Enemy Shuffle

You have two primary options when it comes to enemy shuffle: overworld enemy shuffle and palace enemy shuffle. You will never find palace enemies in the overworld or overworld enemies in the palace, unless the game normally allows for an enemy to be in both (like bots).

For the overworld, East and West Hyrule have different enemy sets. This means that you will never see enemies on both continents, unless the game normally allows it (like bots). You can find a list of overworld enemies and their locations here.

For the palaces, palaces 1, 2, and 5 share and enemy set, palaces 3, 4, and 6 share an enemy set, and palace 7 has an enemy set of its own. This means you will never see Doom Rattlers in palace 4, but you might see Magos in palace 1. You can find a list of palace enemies and their locations here.

Enemies are put into four categories: large (sprite consists of two or more tiles), small (sprite consists of one tile), flying, and generators (rock generator, bird generator, etc.). Enemy shuffle will normally not mix enemies across groups.

If the Mix Large and Small Enemies option is selected, mixing between the large and small enemy groups will be allowed. This means that bots can be replaced with dairas and vice versa. Because of the difficulty of this option it is not recommended for new players.

Other Enemy Options

Shuffle Enemy HP

Enemies will have +/- 50% of their normal HP.

OHKO Enemies

All enemies will require only one hit to kill, even at attack 1.

Shuffle Enemy Exp

The below list shows all of the possible experience drops in the game:

0
2
3
5
10
20
30
50
70
100
150
200
300
500
700
1000

When enemy exp shuffle is selected, an enemy can potentially drop experience either two levels higher or two levels lower on the list. For example, an orange iron knuckle typically drops 50 exp. If enemy exp is shuffled, an orange iron knuckle could drop 20, 30, 50, 70, or 100 exp.

If low or high experience shuffle is selected, it will subtract or add one level before randomizing the experience drops.

Shuffle Which Enemies Steal Exp

There are some enemies in the game, (birds, bago bagos) that steal exp from the player. When this option is checked, the enemies that steal exp from the player will be shuffled. On average, the number of enemies that can steal exp from the player will be the same as in the normal game, but it may be slightly higher or lower.

Bosses will never be able to steal exp from the player.

Shuffle How Much Exp is Stolen

The amount of experience stolen from the player by enemies will be +/- 50% of the normal value.

Shuffle Sword Immunity

Some enemies (such as tektites) are immune to being stabbed and must be killed with the fire spell. If this option is selected, the enemies that require fire to be killed will be shuffled. On average, the number of enemies that require fire to be killed will be the same as in the normal game, but it may be slightly higher or lower.

Certain enemies in the game (such as lizalfos) are immune to projectile attacks, such as beam sword and the fire spell. If one of these enemies becomes immune to being stabbed, it will be completely invincible.

Bosses will never require fire to kill.

Items

Shuffle Overworld Items

This option shuffles the location of all large items in the overworld. These items include:

Heart Containers (4) Magic Containers (4) Hammer Trophy Water of Life Kid Magic Key

This option does not change which locations contain items, only which items are in those locations. Death mountain will still contain two of these items, for example. New Kasuto will also contain two of these items.

Shuffle Palace Items

This option shuffles items that are found in palaces. These items include:

Candle Glove Raft Boots Flute Cross

This option does not change which palace rooms contain items, only which items are in those locations.

Mix Overworld and Palace Items

This option allows Palace Items to be placed in the overworld and vice versa. This does not change with locations/rooms contain items, only what items are in each location/room.

Include Pbag Caves in Item Shuffle

When selected, the pbag cave in the west and two pbag caves in the east will be added to the item shuffle pool. This means that you may find important items (trophy, kid, etc.) in those caves. This also means that you may find smaller items (1ups, pbags, jars) in places that normally had important items, such as in a palace.

Shuffle Small Items

This option shuffles the locations of all remaining items, including:

Keys Jars One ups Pbags

Keys cannot be found in the overworld, only in palaces.

Remove Spell Items

This option removes the three spell items (trophy, medicine, kid) from the game and replaces them with 500 point pbags. This means that you do not have to find these items to get the spells in Ruto, Mido, and Darunia. This option also removes the need for you to get the mirror and the water to access the spells in Saria and Nabooru.

Shuffle Pbag Amounts

This option will randomize the xp given by pbags, in much the same way as exp shuffle, above.

Guarantees

As of version 3.0 the item restrictions have been greatly reduced. Any item can conceivably be found in any position, as long as you are able to get the other spells and items required to get there. The main exception is the raft, which will always be in the west for obvious reasons.

The randomizer will examine palaces to see which items or spells are needed to acquire the item. For example, sometimes the item in palace 3 will be glove blocked, but it will be possible to acquire it without the glove in some seeds. The randomizer will check for this and will be aware that you are able to get that item without the glove.

You do need to have a way of getting through key doors before entering a palace, i.e. you need to have either the fairy spell or the magic key.

Drop Options

Shuffle Item Drop Frequency

When this option is selected, the frequency with which enemies drop pbags/jars will be shuffled. The normal amount is one drop for every 6 kills in each enemy group. It will be randomized between 4 and 8 kills per drop.

Manually Select Drops

This option shuffles what items enemies will drop. If you select this option, you then have the ability to choose which items are in the two item pools.

Item Pools

There are two item pools for drops, a small enemy pool and a large enemy pool. This chart from Redcandle shows which enemies are in which group. Any items that are selected to be in a drop pool are guaranteed to appear in the item drop pool at least once.

Randomize Drops

When this option is selected, each item will have a 50% chance of being in both of the drop pools.

Standardize Drops

If this option is selected then the order that items drop in will be consistent. This means that if multiple people are playing the same seed they are all guaranteed to get the same drops in the same order.

Hints

Hints all follow the same general format. If the boss of a palace is mentioned (Horsehead, Helmethead, Rebonack, Carock, Gooma, Barba), then the item will be in that palace. If the item is not in a palace then it will tell you which of the four continents the item can be found on (east, west, Death Mountain, Maze Island).

Helpful Hints

If this option is selected, four helpful hints will be created and inserted into the game. Each hint will be placed in one of the eight towns or king's tomb. Each location can have at most one hint.

The NPCs who can give out hints in each town are listed below. Note that all of the below NPCs are stationary - none of the NPCs that walk through town will give you useful hints.

Rauru: There are three possible NPCs who can give hints in Rauru. There is an old woman standing outside on the first screen of town. There are two other NPCs inside houses, one on the first screen, one on the second.

Ruto: There are three NPCs who can give hints in Ruto. Error is in a house on the first screen of town. There is a man standing outside on the second screen of town, and a woman inside a house on the second screen of town.

Saria: There are two possible NPCs who can give hints in Saria. There is a man standing near the entrance of the town. There is a sleeping bot inside a house on the second screen of town. You must talk to this bot four times.

King's Tomb: The woman at king's tomb can give you hints.

Mido: There is only one NPC who can give hints in Mido. He is in a house on the first screen of town.

Nabooru: There are three NPCs who can give hints in Nabooru. There is a man inside a house on the first screen of town. There is a woman standing outside on the last screen of town. Finally, there is an ache inside a house on the last screen of town. You must talk to the ache four times.

Darunia: There are two NPCs who can give hints in Darunia. You can read the wall inside a house on the first screen of town. There is a boy standing outside on the last screen of town.

New Kasuto: There are three NPCs who can give hints in New Kasuto. There is a lady standing outside near the entrance of town. There is a woman inside the house that requires magic containers to enter. You can also read the wall inside a house on the first screen of town.

Old Kasuto: There is one hint location in Old Kasuto. Inside the last house on the second screen of town you can read the wall.

Of the four hints that are generated, at most one of them will be for a small item (jar, heart container, magic container, pbag, etc.). If spell item hints are not used, it is possible for spell items to appear as helpful hints.

Spell Item Hints

If this option is selected then the three people blocking spells in Ruto, Mido, and Darunia will tell you where the respective spell items are located.

Town Name Hints

If this option is selected, the town sign will tell you what spell is contained in the town.

Community Hints

When this option is selected, many of the NPCs will have their text replaced with suggestions from the Z2R community.

Miscellaneous Options

Disable Low Health Beep

This option disables the beeping sound that is heard when the player has less than one bar of health.

Disable Music

THis option disables all in game music.

Jump Always On

This option makes the player jump as if the jump spell is always active.

Fast Spell Casting

When this option is selected, you do not have to pause the game to queue up a spell. Whatever spell is selected can be casted at any time by pushing select.

Character Sprite

Choose between the many character sprite options that have been developed by the Z2R community.

Normal Tunic Color/Shield Tunic Color

These options can be used to specify a tunic color for your character.

Permanent Beam Sword

Link will always be able to shoot beams, regardless of his health

Remap Up+A to Up+Select on Controller 1

This option makes it possible to Up+A using one controller, using Up+Select instead of Up+A.

Remove Flashing Upon Death

This option will remove the bright flashing upon Link's death.

Beam Sprite

This is a purely cosmetic option that changes what Link's sprite looks like.