Ocarina of Time Randomizer
28 comments
·June 21, 2025lbourdages
echelon
What platform or emulator do you play them on?
I suppose these will work on Analogue 3D when it gets released?
zamadatix
If you're just playing it for fun the PC port has randomizer seed support as well as a ton of other QoL improvements. If you're doing things as part of a group race there might be a requirement to use only certain emulators or real hardware though, depending how much the group cares.
In general, if you can play the game on the system you can probably get the randomized ROM to play on it.
comebhack
It should do, it can run on original hardware (e.g. via an Everdrive). I play on a MiSTer FPGA [0] and it's great.
pimeys
One of my favorite things to watch on Twitch are the Dark Souls randomizer runs.
sylens
Maybe it's because I love Ocarina of Time but this is one randomizer I really enjoy playing/watching. I think it's because there is already a little bit of sequence breaking built into the game (you can swap the orders of the Spirit and Shadow Temples if you want - in fact, their medallions are already swapped in the Quest Status screen) but there's also a ton of items available to you to solve the same puzzle in different ways. As Adult Link, the hookshot/longshot or hover boots can often be used to solve the same puzzles; ditto for bombs and the hammer.
bevr1337
I couldn't find an easy answer on the wiki or site, but I am using my phone instead of a desktop.
Do users still need to obtain (an obviously legal, Nintendo approved) ROM of classic OOT to use the randomizer?
whaleofatw2022
Yes. Typically randomizers take the input rom (or data from a CD in the case of something like SOTN) and use that as a starting point.
proteal
How does one ensure that every seed can be completed without glitches? The website says this is the case, so I wonder how they do it because it seems nontrivial to generate valid seeds efficiently.
skyyler
This is referred to by OoT runners as "Logic" and you can get an overview here: https://wiki.ootrandomizer.com/index.php?title=Logic
There are people that do "No Logic" randomizers. That's a very different kind of game than the original base game.
Graziano_M
Think of every location in the game as accessible only after certain events or items are acquired. You can create a directed acyclic graph (how build systems figure out dependencies!). You can randomize all the locations of items, as long there is still a way to get from the starting node to the ending node.
echelon
That's great!
Now does the DAG make sense to humans? Does it ever put things in absurd places, eg. a necessary dungeon key in a random grotto halfway across the map (or in another time)? Without clues, how would you know where to check next? Does the game help at all?
How out of sequence can the game get?
Is Master Quest just the moral equivalent of a single static random roll of the Randomizer?
Someone should do this with Majora's Mask, but in a way that can somehow combine the two games.
colechristensen
>Does it ever put things in absurd places, eg. a necessary dungeon key in a random grotto halfway across the map (or in another time)? Without clues, how would you know where to check next? Does the game help at all?
It can be configured with options as to how items are distributed. But yeah, in general anything can be anywhere. Without clues: sometimes there are clues, those silly gossip stones in OoT can output a message about the general location of a thing, but you check everything you can. You learn which items open up each logic path and then open every chest, do every quest, etc.
>How out of sequence can the game get?
Completely. There are randomizer settings that require glitches and sometimes if the logic is wrong (it is sometimes) there are unwinnable seeds.
> Someone should do this with Majora's Mask, but in a way that can somehow combine the two games.
Someone did:
There are a few multi-game randomizers out there.
Some of them even run on real SNES hardware
squigz
> Does it ever put things in absurd places, eg. a necessary dungeon key in a random grotto halfway across the map (or in another time)? Without clues, how would you know where to check next? Does the game help at all?
I haven't played this OOT randomizer, but with the Wind Waker randomizer I've been playing, you can configure things like that - so dungeon keys could spawn in their own dungeon only, or literally anywhere in the world, or just other dungeons. It also has settings that allow you to talk to an NPC to get hints where game-progressing items are.
shhsshs
The project has data about every location (doors, chests, etc.) and the conditions that must be met to allow access to those locations - for example [1]. From there the randomizer shuffles various entrances/exits and item locations around using rules that are mostly guaranteed to keep the game beatable.
[1] https://github.com/OoTRandomizer/OoT-Randomizer/blob/d1bb6c2...
yuriks
The rules for what locations/checks can be reached in what situations and with what items are painstakingly encoded in a machine readable format: https://github.com/OoTRandomizer/OoT-Randomizer/tree/Dev/dat...
I don't know the specifics of the OoTR algorithm but in general they work by considering a set of items which are currently "available", and then progressively picking a random item to place only in locations which are reachable with that current set of available items (which is expanded with each placement).
null
squigz
What timing - I just started playing Wind Waker HD randomizer runs. It really adds a lot to the experience, especially after having played through the vanilla game several times. It manages to re-capture some of the feeling of exploring the world for the first time.
favorited
I'm glad to hear that Wind Waker HD has fan support like this. It was always a bummer to me that the best versions of Wind Waker and Skyward Sword were trapped on the Wii U, given the incredible preservation that Dolphin provides for their original versions.
Edit: I own a Wii U, I'm not trying to be a hater. For years, it really was the ultimate Zelda box.
MBlume
> given the incredible preservation that Dolphin provides for their original versions.
Does cemu not provide comparable preservation for the HD versions? I played through both WW:HD and TP:HD on my Steam Deck using cemu and found it a great experience.
tessierashpool
I found the Wii U joystick too springy to win OOT or even play much of Twilight Princess. I was able to compensate for the springiness until the penultimate fight with Ganondorf at the top of the castle in OOT, at which point it got too annoying and I just gave up, but with Twilight Princess, I hit that threshold in the fire temple's boss fight. Possibly even just a miniboss.
It's possible I just had a Wii U with an unusually tight joystick or something.
delecti
I slightly disagree, but only because Skyward Sword HD on the Switch is a pretty big improvement.
The Wii U was indeed a fantastic Zelda box though.
tinco
I can't wait until my daughter is old enough to play the Wind Waker. It's so amazing that only one generation after OoT they released a Zelda that not only is arguably as good or even better than OoT, but it holds up over 20 years later. You can play Wind Waker today and not realize it's not a new game, the graphics and the gameplay are just perfect.
pests
I’ve played most Zalda games but life was busy when Windwaker came out and I just completely skipped it on accident. Should really grab a copy after hearing your praise.
squigz
Oh dear, do it! It is my favorite Zelda game by a wide margin. And GP is completely correct in how it holds up, especially with the HD version.
rightbyte
I was really disappointed at the time due to the "childish" graphics. But now I think it is interesting that they made such a daring design choice. Like Super Mario 2 hardly being anything like SM1.
It would be fun to play Windwaker someday with my kids. I never played it.
2OEH8eoCRo0
Good Old Days Gaming is great and does a ton of randomizer runs.
I love playing OOT randos. Not only is it a new puzzle every time, there are a lot of quality-of-life improvements (e.g. pushing blocks is faster, cutscenes are skipped) that make it much more enjoyable for someone who already knows the game well.