Minish Cap Zelda

I originally wanted to make this myself but when I figured out how much time and effort goes into these things I dropped the idea of ever trying to make it myself. My girlfriends birthday is coming up and one of her favorite LOZ games is ALTTP on SNES. After she found out about emulators a few years ago she's been ecstatic about being able to play her childhood games. She's currently playing the Parallel Worlds mod and she loves it! She gets in a competitive mode whenever she dies. Her favorite character has always been Zelda though and she wishes she could play as Zelda. She also prefers blonde Zelda over brunette Zelda. I want to have Link replaced by Minish cap Zelda in Parallel Worlds mod and original ALTTP. I read that there's a way to edit the text in these games and I'd like to make a custom story to work with Zelda as the new main protagonist. That I can at least do. However, I just don't have the drive to replace Link myself. I like to play games but editing them is not for me. I will of course credit everyone for their work. Her birthday is February 13th and I'd like to be able to surprise her this way. I'll even pay..unless it's illegal. The best way to contact me is by email. Send me a PM and I'll send you my email. Please, I would greatly appreciate anyone's help!

I want to have Link replaced by Minish cap Zelda in Parallel Worlds mod and original ALTTP. I read that there's a way to edit the text in these games and I'd like to make a custom story to work with Zelda as the new main protagonist.

Unfortunately you are out of luck with this idea. Parallel Worlds is not a standard hack, but rather a special thing, which has all the data reallocated from standard Alttp and from standard Alttp hacks.

This unfortunately means you can not do much with Parallel Worlds. You namely can not open, change or save it with Hyrule Magic, the main editor. So you are out of luck with editing text unless you want to do it in hex, which is not for mortals.

Pretty much the same can be said with the GFX editing (which is necessary to replace the main sprite. And redrawing the main sprite is also a very difficult task.

Ghillie mannaged to bring some sprites and even the main sprite from Minish cap into Alttp and it took him ages and it is very incomplete even today (you can see all states of Link are not optimal but show manual drawing).

Even more difficult with Zelda, who is a side character and thus has far less sprite-variants originally drawn (in both Alttp and Minish cap).

All in all your idea is doable only on ALTTP, and even here it is not really recomended to do, unless you have sprite drawing talent (what you need is a "spriter" and they are quite rare, when it come to drawing the main sprite of the game).

Editing text is of cours easy to do (but not in Parallel Worlds).

Side idea - use the Zelda hack (the hack by someone who actually mannaged to bring Zelda in as the main character, but she is from Alttp not Minish cap) and change the texts accordingly. Even possible would be to change the Zelda in a cell for Link. And then Zelda would be rescuing Link (current Zelda hack has Zelda rescuing Zelda).

I'll even pay..unless it's illegal.

Yes, it is, we do not condone any monetary transactions. The work done is a hobby.

I guess I'll drop the idea of Parallel Worlds then. I already downloaded about 3 different sprite sheets of Minish cap Zelda and one of them is her using the bow and arrow. Do you know where I could possibly find a spriter? I personally prefer minish cap Zelda cause I know she would like it best.

Honestly, unless you want to learn to do this yourself I'm pretty sure you are, as Puzzledude has stated, out of luck.

Drawing the rest of the sprites necessary would take hours and hours. I personally wouldn't see it as very rewarding since the rest of the graphics in the game wouldn't match stylistically. Too bad ghillie or whoever it was never finished and released that hack to replace the GFX in ALttP with those of Minish Cap.

Are there any MC Zelda sprites that have been drawn specifically for ALttP (including all of the specific animations necessary) floating around anywhere? Those would be easy to insert and someone with enough experience with programs like YY-CHR and Hyrule Magic could easily set the correct palettes.

For a side story I was thinking that Zelda (minish cap) was transported to another timeline (still trying to figure out how) and was found unconscious in the woods by Link's uncle. Link is out on an adventure after restoring peace to Hyrule. Now Zelda (ALTTP) is kidnapped by order of the king because he's been possesed so Link's uncle decides to go save her since Link isn't around. During the same time he's planning the rescue he comes to a theory that Zelda (minish cap) is Zelda's (ALTTP)  great great great great grandmother (still figuring out how he would come to this conclusion). Zelda (Minish cap) wakes up from Zelda's (ALTTP) telepathic message and sets out to save her. After Zelda (Minish cap) saves Zelda (ALTTP) the king orders the capture of Zelda (Minish cap). The king believes that she either another maiden or a direct descendent of the seven sages. He claims that she is an evil witch disguised as a beautiful girl. That's the main plot I have so far.

I have no idea but I could search for some. I'll continue to look for spriters as well. I would really like to surprise my girlfriend with this for her bday.

I'm pretty sure if you open the Parallel Worlds rom directly in YY-CHR and scroll down a bit, you'll find the spriteset of Link in there, uncompressed and ready to be edited.

A realisable goal on your current timeframe would be that you take the LTTP styled Zelda sprite that was done sometime ago and make it replace the one in Parallel Worlds and then you would need to find the hex coordinates of the three tunic palettes and edit them in hex directly.

If I would have time I'd do it, but I've got my hands full trying to make the next big thing after the discovery of bread and butter, the invention of wheel and the moon landing!

But thats how I would do it!

That's a good idea. Thanks for the advice. Right there with you.

Are the palettes in the same places (in a standard ALttP ROM and PW)? A person could edit the palettes in HM and then copy the appropriate hex changes into the PW ROM couldn't they?

I'm pretty sure if you open the Parallel Worlds rom directly in YY-CHR and scroll down a bit, you'll find the spriteset of Link in there, uncompressed and ready to be edited.

Exactly. LoL, I forgot the main sprite is not compressed. So there is hope for Parallel Worlds as well with the main sprite, but not the palettes and the dialogs.

Are the palettes in the same places (in a standard ALttP ROM and PW)? A person could edit the palettes in HM and then copy the appropriate hex changes into the PW ROM couldn't they?

This should work in theory, but you never know with PW, might be on a different place.

Does anyone know Ghillie's email? I'd like to get a hold of him and get some more insight into this.

Maybe this helps:
https://www.zeldix.net/t861-play-as-minish-cap-link-for-alttp

I'm not sure if ghillie is still around.

Thanks. I guess I'll have to learn how to insert her myself. Is there any way that I can find a spriter easily? It would be helpful to have someone teach me the ropes.

Is there any way that I can find a spriter easily? It would be helpful to have someone teach me the ropes.

Most people are probably going to be too busy with their own projects to do the drawing, unless they already had a similar project in mind.

If you're willing to learn though, we're here to help.

Here's something that may interest you...

Zelda as Link patch



This is a patch that replaces Link with some Zelda sprites that someone made. It's not in MC style but it is a good start perhaps. Only the main character GFX were changed. No other changes were made.

That's kinda cool. Too bad it's only her main gfx. Yeah I definitely want to take a crack at making her since it's the only way she'll be made. Would you be willing to help me learn the ropes if it's not too much trouble for you? I'll need all the help I can get to make this.

Yeah I definitely want to take a crack at making her since it's the only way she'll be made. Would you be willing to help me learn the ropes if it's not too much trouble for you? I'll need all the help I can get to make this.

Sure. Myself and many other use a program called YY-CHR for this sort of thing. Once you load your Zelda ROM into YY-CHR you will likely need to set the graphics format to 4BPP SNES (otherwise you'll just see a bunch of garbage no matter where you look) and the go to the address 80000. Once there you will see all of the different frames of Link's, or in this case Zelda's animations, but all of the colors will be wrong. To correct this you need to make a savestate in ZSNES (not sure what other savestate formats it supports) when your character is on screen. Once you have that, load your ROM and savestate in YY-CHR, go to the correct address, scroll down in the palette window and choose the very last palette. That is the main character palette. Edit away.

You will eventually need to make some modifications to the palette. This can be down very easily with Hyrule Magic. Go to the palettes section and select "clothes". There are three (one for each of the mails: green, blue, red). Beware, the color for the hands changes once you get gloves so try not to use it for anything but hands.

That's kinda cool. Too bad it's only her main gfx.

That only leaves the portrait from the wanted sign (and the clone Zelda you will be rescuing). I forget the location, but this graphic is in 2BPP format, I believe. I forget whether this one can be edited without making a graphics dump with Zcompress or not. I'll get back to you on that...

That only leaves the portrait from the wanted sign (and the clone Zelda you will be rescuing). I forget the location, but this graphic is in 2BPP format, I believe. I forget whether this one can be edited without making a graphics dump with Zcompress or not. I'll get back to you on that...

Yes, this is 2BPP, and it is in the same bank as the letters. So you definitely need to decompress this.

Oh and I forgot the Link cursor for the overworld map. I believe that is also in the compressed gfx.

Okay, you guys definitely explained it very well but I'm more of a visual learner. Is there any way you can post pictures or something? Also, I'm not planning to make Zelda from ALTTP the main character, I'm trying to make Zelda from Minish cap the protagonist.

Okay, you guys definitely explained it very well but I'm more of a visual learner. Is there any way you can post pictures or something?

I don't mind. Which part are you having trouble with?

Also, I'm not planning to make Zelda from ALTTP the main character, I'm trying to make Zelda from Minish cap the protagonist.

Yeah, I figured these Zelda sprites would be a good place to start since it would be better than working from the standard Link sprite (which looks nothing like any version of Zelda).

Once I open ALTTP in YY-CHR. Could you post step by step pictures so I can just follow it easier if it's not too much of a hassle.

Once I open ALTTP in YY-CHR. Could you post step by step pictures so I can just follow it easier if it's not too much of a hassle.

This covers 1) choosing the correct graphics format, 2 and 3) loading a savestate, 4) selecting the proper palette.



Hope that helps. I've never made a tutorial before or anything.

Also, I'm not planning to make Zelda from ALTTP the main character, I'm trying to make Zelda from Minish cap the protagonist.

The game doesn't see it that way. The game just sees the colour dots. So with YYchr you need to draw these dots out. Original Minish cap Link and Zelda sprites drawings might not fit perfectly into Alttp space, so you will probably need to cut off some pixels or adjust otherwise. It is all about pixel art here.
But looking at the pixels of Minish cap Zelda sprite in a sprite sheet might help with the drawing.

This is how pixel art looks like:


The main problem is that Minish cap Zelda probably has less drawing states as Link in Alttp.

The fastest way to achieve your goal would be to start of with the Minish cap Link by ghillie - since he has already drawn all sprite states and then change him into Zelda. These two sprites are much more compatible.

Thanks SunGod. How do I save a savestate and load a savestate though? Puzzledude, how do I draw the pixels? What program do I use and how do I save the changes I've made?

How do I save a savestate.

Open Alttp smc rom in Zsnes emulator and press save state, and you will get a .zst file. (Usually this is done, when the sprite you want to edit is on screen - in this case Link/main sprite - so that the palettes can be matched by pressing the arrow down button in YY chr).

By the way: You don't really save a savestate, you create a savestate by saving the current state, in which the RAM is in.

and load a savestate though

You probably mean in YY chr. Press "Load emulator state file".

Puzzledude, how do I draw the pixels?

Once you select the thing you want to edit on your left in YYchr, a much more zoomed-in version of that section will be displayed on the right side of the YYchr window. You can also choose your zoom: 2x, 4x etc along side the coding, which must be 4BPP for SNES (16bit), but for letters 2BPP (8bit) is also used in Alttp.

Once zoom is set, you can draw on the right with the mouse. One click is one dot. You also have option copy/paste, rotate drawn, mirror what is drawn etc, but this is valid only for the zoomed in segment.

What program do I use and how do I save the changes I've made?

The program is YYchr, which is a graphic editor. And for the main sprite you can load the SMC Alttp file directly with it. How do you save? Press the save button after editing.

Here some visual help with YYchr (SMW though, but it is the same for Alttp):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ivHH7DRJnZA
Skip the video to 2:20 and see how you draw/redraw. This guy in the video has redrawn the P switch to not have the P.

Another example with redrawing the koopa into a dog:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3hifzXRr2w

As you can see here:
file/load= load SMC for main sprite only, othervise load BIN file, which is decompressed gfx,
Palette/load= where you load the ZST file for pals.

Down left: 4BPP encoding (which is 16bit SNES), zoom is 8x
Far right: tools for drawing: pixel by pixel, line, flood etc
Up: tools for drawing: move left, move right, copy, paste, mirror etc
Right down: Choosing palette, choosing colour to draw etc