So recently I was recording some scenes from LttP for my
youtube channel, which is mostly just game hacking, modification, and research. I had the idea to enable the use of the flute in the Dark World, and after trying many different cheat codes I finally discovered a way to do this. The game rewarded me with a mini map that was physically still the Light World, but with the same color palette as the Dark World.
Since I was successful, I decided to take a screenshot of this. I also decided I wanted to compare it side by side with the normal Light World map. Instead of using the flute again though, I just went back to the Light World and pressed X because I thought it would be the same map. That's when I noticed there are subtle differences...
On the left is a screenshot of the LW map you get from using the flute, but with the sprites turned off. On the right is a screenshot of the LW map you get from pressing X. If you open one of these up in paint and paste the other one of top of it, then hold ctrl and start tapping the z and y keys, you will see how these are different.
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I sat there scratching my head for a few days when I finally realized what was going on. Mode 7. I tried this again in ZSNES and got my screenshots from vSNES, and the maps are identical whether they come from the flute screen or the X button. I suppose the orientation must be slightly different in game. I kind of suspected they looked different when I was playing this back in the 90s but I had no real way of comparing them back then.
Just for fun i'll share the screenshot of the LW map with the DW palette below, and also my more recent mode 7 rips of both worlds with and without their palettes swapped.
