Randomizer Guide
Hello, everyone and welcome to the Twilight Princess Randomizer! On this page, we will explore the land of Hyrule, go over what is new to the randomizer, what is the same, the generation process, and any other miscellaneous bits of information that you need to know about the randomizer and this specific release.
The current version is: v1.0b. The latest version can be downloaded from the website!
The console window
There is an interactive console that can be accessed via
+ File:ButtonIcon-GCN-Z.svg. The controls are as follows:
- Open or close the console using R+Z.
- Select a seed using the D-Pad.
Setup
The setup for 1.0 is very similar to the 0.X Beta in terms of the methods used, but the files and their usage have changed slightly. For 1.0, a typical memory card would look like the following:
- Randomizer.gci This is the bread and butter of it all. This file reads in the seed data file and applies all of the patches in-game. It can be downloaded here
- Rel_Loader.gci This is the same file that was used in previous betas. This is a save file that has the Rel Loader that is used to load the randomizer. You can either use the .gci file or the Gecko Code to load the Randomizer. Both can be found here.
- seedData.gci This file contains raw data created by the Generator that is read by the Randomizer file.
With 1.0, an external generator is used to generate seeds so they have to be loaded onto the memory card separately. There is no limit to the number of seeds you can have on your memory card at one time (as long as you have the space available).
The Regions of Hyrule
This section details the different areas around Hyrule and how they have changed in the Randomizer.
- Ordon Province
- As with the original game, the adventure starts in Ordon Village, where not much has really changed from the previous beta. Players can choose to experience the fun and thrilling tale of the first three days of Ordon Village where Link rescues cradles, feeds a cat, and saves Talo, or skip it and start their quest a different way.
- Even if the Prologue is skipped, you can buy the Slingshot from Sera's Shop.
- Faron Province
- Faron Woods
- After saving Talo during the prologue, to be able to leave the forest, the player must either complete the Forest Temple or have the Open Forest setting enabled. To enter the Forest Temple, the conditions for entry are the same as the vanilla game.
- Lost Woods
- To access the Lost Woods, you will need to obtain the Shadow Crystal to be able to jump around the trees of North Faron Woods to the entrance. Once you enter the woods, the chase begins! You will need to be able to track down and fight the Skull Kid if you wish to proceed. The first version of the Skull Kid chase is skipped in 1.0 so logically, this requires the Bow and Arrows.
- Sacred Grove
- Sacred Grove remains similar to the previous beta. If you wish to enter the Temple of Time, you must strike the master sword into the pedestal, which will remove the statue and allow you to enter.
- If you find yourself in Sacred Grove without the Shadow Crystal, you can save warp to North Faron.
- Faron Woods
- Eldin Province
- Kakariko Village/Graveyard
- This is the same old dusty, mountainous village that we all remember. If you wish to donate to Malo Mart, then you will need to complete the Lanayru Twilight (because there’s no point in trying to do business in a Twilight-Covered land now is there?). The developers have also helped Barnes rebuild his bomb shop so you can buy bombs from him without needing to complete Goron Mines. There also lies a secret in the graveyard that you can uncover if you find a specific item. (See “Custom/Special Items”)
- Death Mountain
- The mountain is home to the Gorons. A tribe of large, rocky beings that will try to beat you up if you get too close. As with the original game, you will need the Iron Boots to throw the Gorons to the side and climb the mountain. Once you reach the top, you will need to defeat Gor Coron in a sumo match if you wish to enter the Goron Mines.
- Hidden Village
- The Hidden Village is the same as the vanilla game. To enter it, you need to collect the Wooden Statue. Once you gain access, the village contains shoot-outs, hide and seek, and remembering the world's longest howling song.
- Kakariko Village/Graveyard
- Lanayru Province
- Castle Town
- Castle Town is the center of trade and commerce in Hyrule. With tons of minigames, shops, and a man who you can give your life savings to. Speaking of Charlo, as a slight quality of life change, you can now donate 100 or 50 rupees to him at a time instead of the normal 30 or 50. This should speed up the donation process a little.
- Lake Hylia
- On the waters of Lake Hylia, the chest at the top of flight by fowl has been replaced with a free-standing item. If you’re lucky, you can even get it to fall down from the platform. You can also use Bombs to enter the Lake Lantern Cave and uncover its secrets. If you ever get lonely, be sure to visit Auru on the tower. He seems like a nice guy. If you happen to find yourself in Lake Hylia during the twilight and are not a wolf or do not have the Shadow Crystal, then you can save warp and it will take you back to Hyrule Field.
- Zoras Domain/Zoras River/Fishing Hole
- While not much has happened in Zora’s Domain, the neighboring areas have some small changes that should be pointed out. For rescuing Iza, you can take a trip (or two) down to Lake Hylia (even if you save her as a wolf!). When you enter the Fishing Hole, you can go on an adventure with Hena to fish for the item that you see sparkling on the cliff in the middle of the pond or you can bring your own fishing rod to help clean up the environment.
- Castle Town
- Desert Province
- Gerudo Desert
- To enter the Gerudo Desert, all you need is Auru’s Memo. Once you have it, you can show it to Fyer and use his cannon to travel. In the event that you do not have the Shadow Crystal to warp out, you can just save warp and the game will spawn you back at Lake Hylia, free to continue your adventure.
- Bulblin Camp
- The camp key check has been replaced with a freestanding item and the chests have been fixed to operate appropriately. Aside from that, not much has changed.
- Gerudo Desert
- Snowpeak Province
- Upon entering the chilly mountainside, you will meet Ashei, who will give you an item as a kind gesture. If you wish to scale the mountain, however, you will need the Coral Earring to be able to catch a reekfish and get its scent.
- In Glitched Logic, it is logical to use Map Glitch to bypass the blizzard, because of this, you can howl at the Howling Stone an infinite number of times.
- Forest Temple
- Once you get all 4 monkeys, they won’t force you to go fight ook. Besides that, the dungeon is pretty much the same.
- If you defeat Ook as wolf, the game will automatically transform you back into human to get the item.
- If you defeat Diababa as wolf, the game will transform you back into a human as to not void out.
- Goron Mines
- No notable changes.
- Lakebed Temple
- No notable changes.
- Arbiters Grounds
- No notable changes.
- Snowpeak Ruins
- The bug where a BossFlag value greater than 0 would cause the suits of armor in the lobby to not spawn has been fixed.
- Temple of Time
- No notable changes.
- City in the Sky
- The bridge to the west wing is broken by default. Because of this, you logically (and literally) need the Double Clawshots to reach the west wing.
- Palace of Twilight
- No notable changes.
- Hyrule Castle
- No notable changes.
Check Types
The following is a brief overview of the different kinds of checks that take place in the randomizer and how they operate.
- Treasure Chests
- Self explanatory. These are the items that you get from treasure chests.
- Event-Based Items
- Items received from cutscenes or received from in-game events.
- Free-Standing Items
- These are items that appear in the overworld. As of 1.0, the items render with the proper item model.
- Gifts from NPCs
- These are items that are given by Non-Playable Characters (NPCs).
- Shop Items
- Items that can be bought from shops. As of 1.0, the items render with the proper item model if the setting is enabled.
- Golden Bugs
- In 1.0, the golden bugs are replaced with freestanding items. This means that you won’t have to chase them everywhere.
- Bug Rewards
- Agitha gives a reward based on the bug that you give her.
- If the setting to shuffle NPC Gifts is disabled, Agitha will work like in vanilla.
- Agitha gives a reward based on the bug that you give her.
- Poes
- Poes operate in a simple manner. You kill a poe, you get an item.
- Hidden SKills
- To get the item, you will need to howl at the stone and then go complete the skill tutorial to receive it. By default, you will always start at the Shield Attack Tutorial to prevent a softlock and you will repeatedly do the Great Spin tutorial if you have all of the skills.
- Foolish Items
- These are trick items that can be added into the item pool. If one is collected, then Link will take damage of some sort.
You can find them in the List of Randomizer Checks
Generator Settings
- Logic Rules
- Glitchless
- Generates a seed that requires no glitches or hard to perform tricks to complete the game.
- Glitched
- Generates a seed that may require glitches and hard to perform tricks to complete the game.
- No Logic
- Randomly generates a seed-data file with items randomly placed in all locations.
- Glitchless
- Hyrule Castle Requirements
- Open
- The barrier around Hyrule Castle is dispelled from the beginning. The player must still complete MDH or have the setting to skip it enabled.
- Fused Shadows
- The barrier around Hyrule Castle will be dispelled once the player has collected all Fused Shadows.
- Mirror Shards
- The barrier around Hyrule Castle will be dispelled once the player has collected all Mirror Shards. (Note: there are only 3 mirror shards in the pool since you technically already have the one in the desert.)
- All Dungeons
- The barrier around Hyrule Castle will be dispelled once the player has completed all Dungeons.
- Vanilla
- The barrier around Hyrule Castle will be dispelled once the player completes the Palace of Twilight.
- Open
- Palace of Twilight Requirements
- Faron Woods Logic
- Golden Bugs
- Sky Characters
- Gifts From NPCs
- Small Keys
- Big Keys
- Maps and Compasses
- Excluded Checks
- Starting Inventory
- Skip Prologue
- Faron Twilight Cleared
- Eldin Twilight Cleared
- Lanayru Twilight Cleared
- Skip Midna's Desperate Hour
- Skip Minor Cutscenes
- Fast Iron Boots
- Quick Transform
- Unrequired Dungeons are Barren
- Transform Anywhere
- Increase Wallet Capacity
- Shop Models Shop The Replaced Item
- Foolish Item Frequency
- Mines Does Not Require Wrestling
- Lakebed Does Not Require Water Bombs
- Arbiters Does Not Require Bulblin Camp
- Snowpeak Does Not Require Reekfish Scent
- Temple of Time Does Not Require Sword or Grove
- City Does Not Require Filled Skybook
- Hero's Tunic Cap Color
- Hero's Tunic Torso Color
- Hero's Tunic Waist Color
- Zora Armor Cap Color
- Zora Armor Helmet Color
- Zora Armor Torso Color
- Zora Armor Scales Color
- Zora Armor Flippers Color
- Lantern Glow Color
- Heart Color
- A Button Color
- B Button Color
- X Button Color
- Y Button Color
- Z Button Color
- Randomize Background Music
- Randomize Fanfares
- Disable Enemy Background Music
Using the item & check search
Page 4 of the console has the Item Search tool. This is somewhat technical, but you need the item list and the stage list. You go to the item list page, do CTRL+F (or OS equivalent) and search for item you're looking for (eg. `Ordon Sword`). It will take you to the part of the sheet that has that item. You want to look at the far left column, the Hex column. The number you want is after the 0x. So in the case of Ordon Sword, that's `28. Take that number and plug it into the `Search ID` value in the console. It will return a result of the stage name (eg. `F_SP108`). With the stage name, go to the stage list and search for that stage name. In the case of `F_SP108`, it will return Faron Woods. Furthermore, if you add -> + room number, it will give you the room within that stage. In an example seed, Ordon Sword was in Room: 4. So search the stage list for `F_SP108`->`04` and that says Ordon Sword is in the Faron Woods Coro area (presumably either Lantern check or his bottle). At this time, Item Search does not support showing which exact check the item is at, just narrows it down to stage and room. The `ID` it shows before the stage is the vanilla item.
How the randomization works
As it is right now, items are randomized into layers. Each layer requires 1 item to access that layer (eg. Stallord layer requires Spinner). This means you are guaranteed Spinner before required to do Stallord. The same logic applies to all items. It ensures you'll have the item required to access the next layer before needing to do the next layer.
The layers are in this order:
Layer | Everything before (and including) | Minimal item(s) to place in this layer |
---|---|---|
0 | Coro | Fishing Rod, Lantern, Slingshot, Wooden Sword |
1 | Ook | Boomerang |
2 | Goron Mines | Iron Boots, Ordon Shield, Hylian Shield (Malo) |
3 | Dangoro | Hero's Bow |
4 | Lanayru Spirit | Bombs |
5 | Enter Lakebed | Zora Armor, Water Bombs |
6 | Deku Toad | Clawshot |
7 | Master Sword | Master Sword, Shadow Crystal, Ordon Sword |
8 | Desert | Auru's Memo |
9 | Death Sword | Spinner |
10 | Snowpeak | Coral Earring, Ashei's Sketch |
11 | Darkhammer | Ball & Chain |
12 | Darknut | Dominion Rod, Hawkeye |
13 | Sky Cannon | Full Sky Book |
14 | Arealfos | Double Clawshots |
15 | Palace of Twilight (2 Sols) | Light Sword |
FF | Everything | Everything else (including Agitha's bug rewards) |
Each item check has two attributes to them: a `Source Layer` and a `Destination Layer`. A Source Layer asks at what layer can I place items here? And the Destination Layer asks at what layer can I place the item that was here?
Note: A different randomization system for 1.0 is in the works that is better than the layers.
Some items are not randomized currently. The following items will always be vanilla:
- Fishing Rod
- Horse Call
- Scoopable items (eg. Trill's shop, SPR Pumpkin Soup, etc).
No Logic
This seperate build of the randomizer changes all of the shuffled items to appear absolutely anywhere with no concern whether or not the game is completable. Some extra features were added to this build in an attempt to make completion more doable in addition to a completely brand new one; Full Keysanity which allows the small keys to appear anywhere in the world.
Known issues/softlocks
As the randomizer is still just a wee baby right now, you have to expect some issues in its current state. This is a list of known issues.
- With a certain combination of skips on its possible to enter the Prince Ralis escort sequence in wolf form and it will not be possible to complete the sequence without resetting/powering off the game.
For the most part, it's safest to get every check in every location before doing a major event (such as beating a dungeon). That will keep you safe from most current and future issues.
FAQ
Q: Are there any trackers for this randomizer?
A: Yes. There are 2 trackers in fact! Lunar Soap's tracker has a map and is more frequently updated, while Taka's tracker is good if you just care about marking off the items. Note that the trackers are not updated as frequently as the randomizer is, so they may lack some features.
Q: Are glitches required?
A: No.
Q: I can't find the 3rd mist chest. I swear I looked everywhere!
A: It gets us all... until we see the image to the right ->
Q: Is Master Sword in the item pool/randomized?
A: Yes, and so is the Shadow Crystal (the item getting Master Sword gives you in vanilla that allows transforming/warping). Both Master Sword and Crystal are separate items, and are therefore randomized separately as well.
Q: Why is this randomizer so annoying to set up?!? I'm mad!!!!!!!!!!!1!!!!
A: Calm your tits. It's very early stages of the randomizer, so a lot is still influx at the moment. If you want to play randomizer, you gotta do the setup. Otherwise, you're free to wait awhile for a better way to be made.
Q: Why is this not more like x randomizer??
A: Twilight Princess is a different beast. Every game has their quirks and TP is no exception. It's also much less developed than many other randomizers in its current state (got its start in mid 2019)
Q: Can I use a premade savefile that's after goats/fishing because I really hate the beginning stuff?
A: Yes, but be sure you didn't use any randomized checks yet. And you have to enable randomization with R+Start inside the console to start it! The ideal spot to be is save after the cat steals your fish. When you load up that file, you can go straight into the shop and get 2 checks in the first 10 seconds.
Q: Does disabling the `rando enabled?` option and getting a few vanilla checks, then turning it back on, have a chance to break anything?
A: It could, depending on what those randomized checks were. Let's say you turned off rando, talked to Coro and he gave you Lantern (vanilla). Turn it back on and you won't get that check. But what if that check was Ball & Chain for example? You'd lose out on Ball & Chain forever.
Q: Can I read?
A: If you've made it this far, the odds are in your favor!
I can't find an item! Help!!!!!
If you can't find an item, the first step is to use Item Search (see section `Using the Item Search` for info!). If you verified that you checked all locations in that area (or if for some reason, search doesn't work as it should), it could very well be a bug. Here's what you can do to help diagnose it:
In page 3 of the console, look at the `Function`, `Source`, and `Dest` values.
- If Function, Source, and Dest did not change for this item, that means it wasn't randomized due to devs not knowing the trigger that gets called for that item
- If Source does not contain some -> and the Dest line says no replacement found for this source, it means the item check wasn't found, which could mean:
- The item check is absent from the code, or
- It could be in the code, but with incorrect data
- If Source looks something like F_SP08->5->7 and the Dest says No replacement here, it means the item check was found and already collected, which could mean:
- The trigger for getting the item might have been fired more than once
- There could be a problem with the logic
- If source and dest look like F_SP08->5->7, then the item check was randomized properly, so the item should be in the world
If you can't find the item and any of the above happen, make sure you're on the latest version of the randomizer. Check at the top-right of the console window to see something like v0.14a © AECX. That number after the v is the version number. Check out the Official GitHub to download the latest release!
You can also join the Discord server for TP Randomizer here!
Miscellaneous
If you're playing the randomizer on the Dolphin emulator, you may find this guide useful. It has tips on lag reduction, how to use the recommended GCI folder and more.