The Story of Zelda's "Top Secret Room"
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- Опубликовано: 9 янв 2024
- What is the "Chris Houlihan Room" in Zelda: A Link to the Past? What is it for, why is it there, and who was the man himself?
Check out my playthrough of all Zelda games on my new channel @Zeldudes , beginning with Skyward Sword! • The Beginning - Zelda:...
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Sources:
ZeldaWiki, of course: zeldawiki.wiki/
Legends of Localization, with translations of the original Japanese: legendsoflocalization.com/qa-...
Chris Houlihan Room, Zeldawiki: zeldawiki.wiki/wiki/Chris_Hou...
TCRF on A Link to the Past: tcrf.net/The_Legend_of_Zelda:...
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► Outro music by Clangon: • Zeltik Outro Theme (Wi...
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When I was about 10, I wrote to Nintendo about discovering "Links Attic." Back then, you could write to Nintendo, and they'd reply back with a typed letter... for those of us too poor for a Nintendo Power subscription on top of pre internet days, this was the only way we could get answers when a game stumped us. Anywho, I wrote them about being in a room filled with 5 rupee coins in Link's attic because exiting the room dropped you off outside Link's house. They replied saying they had no idea what I was talking about and to write back with pictures of my screen if I ever encountered that room again. It only took almost 20 years for me to watch a video about Chris Houlihan room and figure out what the heck I encountered years ago
I used the good ol' 900-Number to call Kemco-Seika to get "Shadowgate" and "Deja Vu" tips when I got stuck. I got stuck a lot, I called a lot, and when my parents got the ridiculous phone bill, I got my hide tanned A LOT.
I wrote to Nintendo as well. After smash brothers 64. But before melee. I talked about how they should have the bad characters in the roster. I was like 10 at the time. They wrote back some generic thing. But hey, melee had the villains
there was a nintendo hot line as well
A friend and I were trying to get past a certain area of a game on my Gameboy, I can't remember the game now, as it was 93, so he got the idea to call the number on the back of the GB. When he did, the guy who answered said that it was a technical support line and they didn't help with game tips, but he said that he would send us something cool in the mail, and asked for our addresses. About a week later, we both got big envelopes from Nintendo that were like press packets. They had the history, a letter thanking us for our support, and a bunch of other cool things.
I'm not sure whether Nintendo was having its employees play dumb just to make the room seem more mysterious, or whether they just failed to educate those employees about the existence of the room. Given what I've heard, I bet it's the latter.
The funniest part is there’s a very real possibility that Chris Houlihan wasn’t a Zelda fan, and never bought ALttP when it released. Maybe he doesn’t know about the room’s existence to this day.
That is a very real possibility 🤔
Not if he wasn't informed through some means after the fact. Considering how popular the game has become over the years it's impossible that the real Chris isn't aware of this easter egg (unless he passed away mere years after the game released that is).
iirc he died quite awhile ago.
that would imply that he was found at some point@@balaam_7087
He was probably just someone that worked at Nintendo
The dude kindly asked for you to keep it a secret and you go and tell everyone.
Two more facts about Houlihan:
1) While the GBA version doesn't let you enter the room naturally any more, it is still programmed into the game files. In this version, the telepathic tile is absent, so it only contains rupees and nothing more.
2) Cadence of Hyrule contains an error-handling easter egg. If you somehow enter a map screen that is out-of-bounds (due to the random generation creating terrain that lets you hop over the boundary wall) then you will enter an area with a small house. Inside the house is a character named "Error Houlihan" who introduces himself by saying "I AM ERROR". This character is a reference to both Zelda II and Zelda ALttP as I'm sure you know. Error Houlihan will reward the player with Boots of Speed, a powerful item that otherwise isn't actually in the game normally.
I recall they patch that 2nd one.
I manage to get the room on the switch
Error was a joke that was poorly translated. It was intended as in computer error. The river man (bridge) note guy, Bagu, means bug, as in computer bug.
I stumbled into the Chris Houlihan room twice. The first time I collected all the rupees and left without a thought, but wasn't able to find my way back (from the top of the Pyramid of Power). My friends didn't believe me at all. The second time I found it I think was from the well in Kakariko Village...and there were no rupees. 😥
IIRC once you collect the rupees they don't respawn. Which was probably done so that people who figured out the secret didn't use it to farm rupees early on.
@@OtakuUnitedStudio I think it has more to do with the fact that the rupees are static, instead of being tucked away inside pots. Same reason Heart Pieces don't respawn.
@@CoralCopperHead Yeah the same is true for other "blue floor" rupees you find like the ones in Eastern Palace. You can get them one time only, they don't respawn.
Fun fact: Did you know that Chris Houlihan is referenced in Cadence of Hyrule? If you manage to glitch out of bounds in certain areas of that, you can meet a hidden character called "Error Houlihan".
I'm surprised that zeltik didn't mention the Nintendo Power Alttp Guidebook. I remember reading about Houlihan's room in that, and I'm like 90% sure I still have the book somewhere.
I'll update this comment if I find my copy
Please do! I wasn't aware of the room being mentioned there!
I'm sorry to disappoint, but I just scoured my copy from cover to cover, and there is no mention of the room in there anywhere.
The Chris Houlihan room was acknowledged in an old player guide of ALttP, saying you could get it through by going into some caves at not exact angles. In one playthrough, I actually managed to trigger the room going into the cave under the bush at the very beginning of the game. I also got it entering a fairy fountain. I've even actually seen it once in the GBA game; it happens, it's just less likely to trigger, and it doesn't mention Chris Houlihan.
A note about WarMECH: on tbe NES, it had a 1/64 chance to appear on the long bridge before the battle with Tiamat in the Flying Fortress. It was a terrifying encounter, because it almost always ambushed you and it's first turn was usually a partywide unaspected damage attack called NUCLEAR that was almost guaranteed to murder one of your mages. Its normal attack could also kill one of your mages. It regenerated HP every round, had more health than any boss except the final boss, and basically resisted everything. In fact, WarMECH was a nastier fight than the boss you were literally about to fight. It was by far the scariest single enemy random encounter in the game; only a random encounter with a group of dark elves was scarier.
It was one of the first examples of a superboss in RPGs. It also started a trend of random encounters usually late in the game that were more frightening than even the final boss sometimes.
Thanks for sharing, very interesting
When you think about it, Chris Houlahan literally has the priveledge to be a part of Zelda forevermore as long as no one finds him. Because after all; "It's a secret to everyone!"
Anything could have happened or happen.
This is am important room for randomizers, it allows you to buy bombs quickly and effectively at the start.
Aye; I use it in almost every Super Metroid/Link to the Past combo rando I ever play, unless Uncle or the chest south of him give me 300 Rupees.
i remember calling the tip line back in the 90s and got told of this secret room. the person told me to spawn at links home and dash to the hole next to castle. if i get in the hole within x seconds from spawning. it would take me to that room. it worked for me a few times.
Love hearing about old video game rumors and fun facts. Even when I've heard about something before, it's always interesting to me because there always seems to be new tidbits of information. In this case, I didn't realize just how much ambiguity there was around Chris Houlihan. Maybe I'm misremembering past videos I've seen about him and the secret room as it has been a while seen I've seen or heard anything about it, but until now I thought it was all fully solved and confirmed with no mystery left. Great video!
How’s your comment 15 hours old but the video was posted 5 minutes ago?🤯
Edit: or is my yt bugged?
How is this comment 15 hours ago
It literally says 15h ago
@@josuecenturiondomaniczky9297 Channel members can watch before us pleb normal users.
@@josuecenturiondomaniczky9297 It says a day ago for me lol. Weird.
At 1:37 you said that all methods involve using the boots or bombs to adjust link's Y-axis, but if you go to the fairy fountain near the witch's hut. Jump into the water 4x without flippers, then drop down the hole, you should get into the room. No boots or bombs required.
Because the room is an error handler room so a ton of little things confuse the game and load it.
Nintendo misspelled their own name as ‘Nintando’ in their own magazine
Lmao
Really? Wow
That's the only time they spelled it right.
Amazing to see a mention of Club Nintendo in this one. We miss you, Gus!
I could have sworn there was a specific bush with a hole under that would also always lead to this room...
That was the way into the room as was understood for the longest time, yes.
Now that we know how it works for real, entering the secret passage from the beginning of the game isn't necessary.
I wish that Nintendo would add some kind of hidden Easter egg like this in the next open world Zelda it would be so fun to see it’s a secret to everyone again
I found it next to the castle after dashing around with the Pegasus Boots. Until watching this video I never realized there were multiple ways to get to it.
I even called the Nintendo Game Counselor line to ask about it, and they had no idea what I was talking about.
Future video idea for you: Relationship ranking The Legend of Zelda, for Valentine’s Day?❤
Basically measuring the Intimacy levels specifically between Link and Zelda from each game of the series
Possible Scale from 1 to 10? Similar to your strength ranking of the different Links and Ganons etc.
Ranging from total strangers, acquaintances, friends/ childhood friends, siblings, one sided crush, romantic lovers, practically married, soulmates? Or some variation. I know this already has a lot debate, especially with Tears of the Kingdom, but I wanted to hear your take on it, with your famed raking of strengths of past videos.
It can still be accessed in the GBA release, I'm pretty sure I did it during a timeframe where I only had access to the GBA version, and some French tips and cheats websites posted a fairly reliable way to trigger it (accessing one of the graveyard tombs during a falling animation - either from a bomb, or bumping into something) and it still serves as a crash handler.
It lacks Chris' name though, much like the European versions at the time.
Fun fact: According to tcrf, the gigaleak has work-in-progress French scripts that added a mention to someone called "Chris Anthème" - a pun on chrysanthemum, the flower, by the French localizer who thought it was an NPC name. That first line extra to the English version was deleted in the final French version and later from the English GBA version.
Whoever Chris Houlihan is or was, maybe he wants to keep the mystery going and keep his identity a secret to everybody.
I could get behind that if I were Chris houlihan. And then before my demise I’d let everyone know. That’s just me tho. I’d approve if he didn’t do that too and it forever was kept a secret
I see what you did there. 😉
The Chris Houlihan room IS in the GBA version. They have just removed his name.
It isn't accessible through normal gameplay, only through cheats
@@Zeltik Maybe you're right. I did mess around with my Action Replay a lot 😉
I’ve heard this story several times over the years but the way you told it is by far the best I’ve seen. Fantastic work!
bro, he stretched out a 3 minute video into an 8 minute video
@@kidrobot. Guess you can’t please everyone 🙂
EXCELLENT! Thank you for this video and thank you for including the Kakariko Village theme!
I always love coming home from school and seeing new zeltik video it always makes my day better and also good job on Zeltik you never fail to make a good video
Alttp is still my favorite Zelda game! Love hearing about the secret room, never encountered it myself growing up
Chris Houlihan is my favorite Zelda character.
Zeltik, you're not supposed to tell people about it... Chris Houlihan is fuming right now
Nintendo does love their secret arenas
Never would have imagined that a final fantasy superboss might have influenced a Zelda game in some way lol
Chris Houlihan is indeed a real person.
Zeltik, the amount of effort you put into writing and editing your videos will always be a huge inspiration to me!
Hey there, Zeltik. Hope you listened to the Live Orchestra cause it was amazing! The Link's awakening Theme was my favorite piece. Zelda has such high-quality music, man...
I find it funny how people end up finding this room and tell their friends about it only to be unable to find it again. Chris literally said "Keep it between us, okay?"
I remember stumbling upon that room a few times when I played LttP on my SNES. For some reason I never quite realised there was something weird about it. It was just something that happened.
2:16 I remember when this game came out, I rushed to the store and bought the game and a Super Nintendo. As an added bonus I also bought Illusion of Time which was said the be kind of like Zelda. It was, and is an iconic game for me to this day. Doesn’t hold a candle to Zelda though. I accidentally found this room and thought yes, a perfect place to return to collect rupees. Never found it again, but now I know why 😂
Illusion of Time (known as Illusion of Gaia in North America) came out years after A Link to the Past, so I'm assuming you are getting your details a little mixed up.
@@Grogoo. yes, you’re absolutely right. I was starved for Zelda and got this game as a tip instead. Good game though, but not Zelda. Thanks for straightening that out for me 👍🏻🙌🏻✊🏻
Hello #Zeltik @Zeltik I always Watch your videos all the time even while I'm doing dishes hahah big fan your videos are Relaxing learning about zelda info👌🏾
The "It's a secret to everybody" part of the original Japanese version, the cave and the rupees are all a reference to Zelda 1: In a cave somewhere in Hyrule, a Moblin gives you a blue rupee and says "It's a secret to everybody."
This was Memory lane for me , thank you sir 🙏
Maybe Chris Houlihan was the friends we made along the way.
I used to play that game all the time when I was younger, I always have enter that room when on a new save
I stumbled into this room when playing this with my son in Wii or WiiU VC. By the time I stumbled into I had heard of it, but I never saw it in all my years of playing the game as a kid in the 90s.
I love Zelda lore and mysteries 🙏
I watch this channel a lot and I recently viewed your videos for The strongest Link and the Strongest Ganondorf. Both very good lol. But I was wondering if you were ever going to do one for Zelda. Maybe... The wisest Zelda?
This is interesting! I knew about the room from knowing way too much random Zelda tidbits over the years, but I had heard that it “Might” be a name of some NoA programmer who snuck his name into the localization, and no one thought to check the failsafe room. Knowing it more likely had to do with a Nintendo Power contest was something I didn’t know! Thanks for the research and presentation, you help even long time fans who’ve played every Zelda game learn more through your videos haha
Nah it’s most likely a dev that worked at noa
@@Tsumami__I might still assume that was true… if Zeltik didn’t provide the screenshots of the interviews of them asking about it. What, are you claiming someone fabricated a third of this video to throw people of the trail?? And if so, why???
@@Diamond_Aura I think he might have just been making a lame joke pertaining to the fact that a NoA programmer was mentioned at all.
@@AnonymOus-ss9jj they were around multiple other comments saying the same thing so… if it’s a joke it sure don’t read like one
3:43 Ah, yes ! The Nintando.
I may not know who Chris Houlihan is, but as a german Zelda fan I can that if a certain german translator didn't start with Link's Awakening but A Link to the Past, this room would have been named Claude M. Moyse room. Guy loved to put in weird little things in the translation of 90's Nintendo games.
Look into the german translation of the original GB release of Link's Awakening. Or the whole translation of Secret of Mana, a legendary translation.
I don't know if my brain is gaslighting me, but I have never played the SNES version of this game only the GBA port and before you showed the room in the vid you mention the name and I knew exactly what you were talking about. To be fair I am a huge Zelda fan and its possible I read about it somewhere before this video, but I would swear on a bible or before a court that everytime I have replayed my GBA port I have been in that room at least once and seen the message. You have always been very accurate with your research before, so the only think I can do is boot up my GBA and try again.
As far as I'm aware, the room DOES exist in the GBA version (but without the Chris Houlihan text), but can only be accessed via cheats, not through normal gameplay.
I also found this room once or twice by accident, first I was thinking a error or easter egg in the game and after the second time I was wondering why I couldn't find it again by playing normal like before. By now I know how its a special room.
What's really cool is Chris Houlihan very well may come across this video one day.
Never had this room, but I had something similar in Duke Nukem 64 when I found the Duke Burger level. It drove me crazy how I couldn't show it to friends because I didn't really understand how I got it (which is really stupid if you know. It's not something you'd do by accident like in the video). Glad to see that I wasn't the only one whom this happened to. :D
I never knew this room existed 😳 I remember watching my Dad play it on the SNES when I was a young boy and I've only played the game myself once a few years ago, but now I want to play it again just to trigger this secret room.
I'm a bit surprised that even though he showed how to easily get into the room whenever you want, he only mentioned the pixel glitch method. I remember waiting until I was ready to do a early game shopping spree to go in there and load up for a quick boost. It saves mowing grass over and over again at least. You don't need bombs or the boots, just jump in the secret hole at the castle from the south side only. Was even the opening of the video. Probably just as well the rubies never respawn, we'd all have been farming that room over and over. =P
Thank god I’m not crazy! I completely forgot about ALTTP but remember discovering this room years ago.
Take what I’m about to say with a grain of salt but I thought I read somewhere back in the day that you could enter the room by killing a certain amount of enemies or picking up a certain amount of collectibles (ie: ruppes, hearts etc) and then the next cave you entered would be his room. The first time I encountered it was from that tree as well.
When will part 3 of the classic enemies reimagined series release?
I came across it intentionally by following a guide, but the guide told me to spawn in the sanctuary (I think) and run a specific path to the castle gate as fast as possible, which was very difficult to do by the way.
Old guides were superstitious about how to pull it off, claiming that things like running/timing were necessary, when in reality all you have to do is get Link's subpixel coordinates misaligned in the way Zeltik describes, and there's several specific ways to do that. There are also many things you can do that "fix" the subpixel coords and keep the glitch from working, so as long as you do one of the first, and then none of the second before dropping down a hole, you'll trigger it. There's never any element of speed necessary.
@@QuasarEE The funny thing is that the guide I mentioned was from either Zeldapedia or Zelda Dungeon in like 2014 or something.
For a sec I was waiting for a "Or will it??" at the end w/announcement of an exclusive Chris Houlihan interview. 😆 Imagine being the one to break that.
Man, if only!
"well shit
thats a hell of a mystery no one thought was a mystery and didnt even really need solving
but damn if it didn't just get solved so nice work" - Dave Strider, Homestuck
Seriously though I thought the whole 'Chris Houlihan' thing was just... general Zelda knowledge by this point?
Woah we're goin back to the OG easter egg with this one.
Wow, I've been a fan of A Link To the Past for 31 years and I never knew about this.
It fascinates me that Chris has never been discovered, even if it was a fake name or alias.
The GBA version is the only one I have played aside from the one on the Switch. I've been to this room on that version. You can still trigger the room by running around like crazy with the boots.
I found the Chris Houlihan room once when I was a kid. I kept trying to recreate what I did to find it again and couldn't do it. Told my friends and no one believed me. At the time, I figured I was possibly the only person who ever found it.
Zeltik needs to collab with Thomas Game Docs
I have a few things I would love to see. Mostly I would love to see the stories of the CD-i Zeldas beat by beat. I don't know how many cutscenes you can realistically include but I would really like to be able to experience Link and Zelda's quests in some form
Also, I have been trying to find the answer to this question for a long time and I don't know if this information even really exists but I would love to know who built the original labyrinths in the first game and why? What was their original purpose? Why are there so many puzzles and secrets? When were they overrun with enemies?
Interesting. Never heard of!
Can u do a vid on one of the older 3d Zelda games?
I found this room as a kid!!
6:11 Hearing Eminem rap instrumental in a Zeltik video is not something I ever expected. 😆 We live in the best branch of the Zelda timeliness. Solid video, as always.
Still waiting for links to the past part 2 5 years later
I wish there was something secret to be discovered in more recent Zelda games as well.
What do you think about the Lomei? A.e the labyrinths/castles of the Lomei. Maybe they could be linked to the barbarian set from Phirone and also to the triforce of power?
i think the cart I had as a kid was very slightly damaged, as there was one room to the far east that would consistently lead to this hidden room.
Huh? I.....unbelievable. Idk if I did found it or not. Geez. That’s incredible
I found this room by accident too!
I had no idea about this room at all, but I appreciate Zeltik and Zelda mysteries, even just crazy obscure secrets like this one.
we love ourselves these little mysteries c:
I thought about this room a few days ago. What are the odds?
As a kid I often triggered the room but didn‘t understand it and I was pretty annoyed that the sign always read the same.
Wow, that’s quite the prestige to get your name in a debug room that can give you infinite Rupees.
The craziest part of this is that Chris Houlihan, or one of his friends or family members, has never come forward. He'd presumably be in his forties now. No one has said anything?
It's up there with Inezh from the first Resident Evil.
Heh, I remenber finding that room as a kid. ^^
When I was a kid I was playing Mario on my cousins NES I fell into quicksand and found a secret room full of coins. I have never been able to find it again
That cave is often used when doing randomizer when you need some rupees for Zora haha
Considering we have his name, it wouldn’t be impossible to find him, but considering we have no information on his location, birthdate (outside of a generalized period that excludes him being born after 1900), it would be a long ass list of people that it just isn’t worth it.
The thing is, I remember finding this room back in the 90's (don't remember where) but no Chris Houlihan on the wall. It was definitely in English and had a plaque. Huh...
Then again, I'm not sure if I read the plaque so maybe it did have the guy's name on it 🤷
I swear I used the invisibility cape, to sneak past one of the bumpers in a cave hallway, that lets you fall into a hole in the floor that you could see but not reach? Was that something else?
Interesting
I had always thought that Chris Houlihan was on the dev team lol. XD I found that room one time when I was a kid and when I tried to go back in to try and abuse the infinite rupee glitch, it took me somewhere else immediately, and I instinctively knew I found some kind of GD room, and therefore I didn't worry about it as much anymore. XD It's interesting to see the truth about this.
It’s easy. I found it on accident and can teach anyone how to find it.
I swear I remember a long time ago seeing a picture of Chris Houlihan in a documentary type thing regarding this. It was for sure more than 15 years ago, but I remember seeing him.
Maybe it was in a top scores or achievements in gaming history documentary. Too long ago to know really where.
I have discovered that room a few times.
They probably just made the name up.
@Zeltik: The mystery has finally been solved. Here is a big *Thank You* for doing a bit of due diligence and research on this topic because I think that we all *Needed* this room to be *Finally* put to sleep. Will there be any more *ZelDudes* stuff released tonight? Just wondering... ~ JonseyG 👲💖
No Zeldudes tonight, but back to SSHD tomorrow!
@@Zeltik That's great to hear and thank you!!! ~ JonseyG 👲
i never played the game until 2022, but i found this room during my first playthrough and was confused 😭
I’ve never believed this story because Houlihan is not a common name. It sticks out. If there were a Chris Houlihan we would know who he is by now.
Better term for this room is an error handler room as it helps stop crashing and keeps the game running. While cool that his name is in the room it's kind of a dick move to hide it in an error handler room that you can play the whole game and never see. I also think Nintendo saying it was random was to keep the "magic" alive. It kind of ruins the mood if you explain oh the room is used as an error and crash handler so that our game can keep running when you happen to confuse it and mess up where pits should send you. No programmer would ever want to admit that the "secret" room players found is just covering up errors. Even more so if they knew that the errors they are covering up are in theory easy to do. Like really think about how some simple movements that anybody can do at random mess up the game enough to confuse it. Programmers want the work to look polished. People that do not fully understand how coding works could easily get the wrong idea from being open about that.
Better finding a secret treasure room than crashing the game... :-D
I never found this room by accident though having played ALttP quite often (and still doing it, but only every few years now)...
I thought he was going to answer whether Chris Houlihan was real in Zelda Lore