HelpTheWretched (HTW for short)

As of this writing, it's been over 3½ years since the last official update, and future updates may be infrequent as well. We apologise for this "extended downtime" and offer the following message from the site's owner.

Hi! It's me, HTW, and I hope you're all doing well. Thanks for taking the time to read this message. As noted above, I create and manage nearly all of this site's content. Since the beginning, I've been exploring many different ways to obtain these sound effects and share them with you in their optimal quality. This has involved a lot of practice and experimenting in the games, a few kinds of hacking, keeping extensive notes, and even writing my own programs to assist with those jobs. Being entirely a hobby, this takes a lot of concentration which can be hard to maintain. It seems that after taking even a short break, I end up needing to reacquiant myself with everything. In other words, I should never take any breaks! But as you can guess, Real Life sometimes gets in the way. In addition to having other interests and priorities, a few problems have been holding me back. To start with, my present living situation (and the one before it) have not been ideal for the work involved. My home layout makes it tricky to set up recording cables, my personal computer has become shared among several people, I rarely have any peace or privacy for gaming or making recordings, and I recently spent five years without an active Internet connection. To make things worse, I lost a massive amount of my personal data thanks to a computer repair technician who wasn't paying attention. This included many files that were essential to working on this site. Several other upgrades, repairs, and transfers since that time have delayed the recovery of this data and left me with some other improperly-functioning hardware, including my audio jacks and SD Card reader. Most crucially, I've been dealing with a few serious and unexpected medical problems during this entire time; illnesses, injuries, and all sorts of issues. I won't elaborate on them here, except to say they're a major distraction, taking up a lot of my time and energy. Most days, I feel exhausted just from trying to overcome them. I hope you can understand how these problems can lead to a discouraging cycle that sometimes seems endless, and a restrictive environment that keeps me from getting my cuccos back in a row. Your support throughout this time has meant a lot to me. Sorry to keep you waiting!

We thank you all for your patience and understanding as these issues continue to be resolved. We're expecting some improvements to come in the near future, and we'll keep you notified on the site's front page and on our Twitter account!

1. I'm not always ready and available to make new recordings.
   (See also: About The Extended Downtime)

2. I don't have access to some Zelda games.
   (See also: You're missing some newer games! Are you going to add them?, You're missing some older games! Are you going to add them?)

3. Some requests (especially enemies) involve a lot of playtesting and identifying sounds.
   (See also: Why don't you have many Enemy/Boss sounds?)

4. Some requests involve hacking or exploiting game bugs, which can be a painstaking process. I'm no expert!
   (See also: How do you rip or record sounds without any background noise/music?)

The links to various Answers in this FAQ will provide further explanations. If you still wish to request a sound which isn't immediately obtainable, it will be placed on a master "To Do" list and prioritised by its difficulty and popularity, as well as how soon I might have been planning to get it anyway.

The "Coming Soon" list on our front page will tell you what we're planning to add next, but this list is always subject to change.

(See also: I contacted you ages ago and you haven't responded! What gives?, Are there any other ways I can help the site grow?)

The download links are the filenames on the left side of the lists of sounds for each game. (Download links for complete sets are found at the top of each game or category.)

If you just click them, your browser will probably try to play the sounds.

To make sure your browser downloads the files, do a right-click on the link and select the option that says "Save Link As", or "Save Target As", or whichever option resembles one of those.

Mac users should hold Control while clicking to get these options.

For most mobile/tablet devices, you should press on the link and hold it for a moment.

Unfortunately, sounds (and .zip file collections) cannot be downloaded with any Nintendo console or handheld system.

A)  Are they not showing up when you click a game's title from the menu?

Don't even see the menu?

Chances are that your web browser is blocking access to our database. You may see a yellow bar at the top of your screen when loading the site, which will mention blocked content or scripts. Click this bar to allow your browser to access our database.

The Legend of Zelda Sound Effects has been tested and verified as working with the latest versions (as of September 2014) of Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome, as well as several Android and iOS mobile devices and the Opera-based Wii web browser. If you have knowledge of cross-browser, cross-platform compatibility techniques that could be beneficial to this site, please contact me!

The reason why some games/sections don't have complete sets is that many of them would be far from truly complete. And since bandwidth usage was a concern in the earlier days for this site, I didn't want to post large "complete set" files that I knew would be updated often, and re-downloaded by visitors again and again.

We've heard your cries of frustration with having to click many individual links, and we've decided that our next coming site update is the time to fix that.

Other formats like MP3 and Ogg Vorbis can reduce the file sizes drastically, but at the cost of some sound quality. We wish to be THE place to find these sound effects in the highest possible quality.

However, some of the larger, longer sounds, like the Ocarina of Time nature soundscapes, will be soon offered as FLAC files, since most people would need to reformat and edit the sounds to make use of them anyway. The FLAC format reduces their file sizes as much as possible while keeping the sound quality completely intact, making them optimal for downloading, though some devices might not recognise the format.

Ringtones will be offered as .m4r files (AAC format) in order to work on iPhones, and as .ogg files (Ogg Vorbis, which we believe to be the best overall compatibility and compression) for other devices.

But if it seems like it should be there, or similar sounds are there, then you might just be looking in the wrong section, or the sound might have a different name than you're expecting.

Keep in mind that some sounds (even voices) are sometimes used for multiple purposes in a game.

I've tried to sort each sound into the most appropriate category and label them by what I consider is their "primary" use, and any other known uses are listed in their descriptions. To find sounds by these alternate uses, try your browser's text-search feature (usually Ctrl-F) or the Quick Sound Search on this site's home page.

Sometimes it's hard to label and describe certain sounds in a way that everyone will recognise. What I originally called the "Discover a secret" jingle has also been called other things like "Correct solution" and "Puzzle solved" by authorised sources. You might need to try a variety of search terms to find what you're looking for.

Also, many small items share them same short jingle or sound effect when collected, and some enemies use the same sound as others for certain actions, so you could try a more general search term as well.

If you know of any alternate uses or better names/descriptions for some sounds, please contact me and suggest them!

But for most of the missing newer games, I simply can't right now.

Please keep in mind that I don't own a Nintendo Switch or a Wii U and I have no plans to get one in the near future. I only recently gained access to a borrowed Nintendo 3DS.

I'm sorry, this means Hyrule Warriors and Breath of the Wild sounds are not coming soon.

Even when/if I do obtain these systems, it remains to be seen if any of my known techniques for ripping sounds or muting in-game music will even be possible on the newer games.

Update: Recent developments from the 3DS modding community have made sound-ripping a possibility. I'll be investigating this further, but keep in mind that any barriers due to not owning certain systems or games will still apply. Stay tuned for more updates!

Phantom Hourglass doesn't seem to give Link any new vocal sounds, so it was skipped in favour of Spirit Tracks. Eventually, I hope to gather and supply sounds from both games.

While some sounds can be ripped from the DS games, I'd be unable to identify many of them without help (since I don't own a Nintendo DS), and the usual emulator techniques for recording sounds can't be done because of how the DS processes audio.

Four Swords is nearly impossible to play on an emulator with just one player. I may be able to record some of the basic item sounds, but not much else, because I can't progress very far in the game.

Four Swords Adventures, regretably, I just haven't played very much. Hopefully soon I'll get the chance, because it seems very fun (despite the terribly-written introduction to the Hyrulean Adventure). Also note that I probably won't be able to play or record sounds from Shadow Battle or Navi Trackers.

Link's Crossbow Training doesn't have much audio that isn't in Twilight Princess, so it's not a priority.

For the time being, I will not be attempting to collect sounds from remade games (including "3D", "HD", and "Anniversary" editions), unless they are found to have some significantly altered and/or improved sounds and it is feasible to collect them. Sounds from other games with Zelda-related bonus content or guest appearances, such as Mario Kart 8, Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate, Sonic Lost World, and Bayonetta for Wii U, are not being considered for collection at this time.

Please do not ask for any exceptions to these priorities unless you can offer some form of assistance.

(See also: How do you rip or record sounds without any background noise/music?, Are there any other ways I can help the site grow?)

Due to popular demand, we will be including these tunes for download in our new Music section, which will be opening soon.

(See also: Where can I get Legend of Zelda music?)

Due to popular demand, we will be including these tunes for download in our new Music section, which will be opening soon.

(See also: Where can I get Legend of Zelda music?)

Try these sites, just to name a few:

• Zelda Universe
  
• Zelda Dungeon
  
• ZeldaPower
  
• Emuparadise (beware of pop-up ads!)
  
• Kingdom Hearts Insider
  
• Galbadia Hotel

We've made some exceptions for the shorter, item-related 'fanfares' that are signature tunes from the series, and made them available in their respective games' pages. They are usually located in the "Weapons and Items" category.

Still, we've received much demand for more Zelda music, so we're pleased to announce that a new Music section of this site will be opening in the near future. We still won't have entire soundtracks for download, but it will include some of the most requested tunes, as well as links to all the rest (in all sorts of formats!), tribute songs and remixes, and some hard-to-find music from the more recent games.

Our Music section is a high-priority addition and will hopefully be open soon!

First, when I record sounds (as opposed to ripping them), I resample them to the lowest standard sample rate before they audibly lose any quality, in order to keep the file sizes as small as possible.

The other reason is that when ripping sounds, I leave the samples in their original sample rate, but this rate often varies between games.

On occasion I've adjusted the sample rate to change the sound's pitch, when it's heard at various pitches in the actual game.

These ripped sounds are in their original, untouched forms and quality. The only times I edit these sounds before posting them are when there are slight glitches or "pop/click" noises that can be fixed through touch-ups, or when the files need their Wave header data fixed to ensure that they'll work in all sound players and have the correct pitch.

Many sounds, however, can't simply be ripped from games. This is because they're generated on-the-fly when you hear them, either through waveform sounds (like nearly everything heard in the NES and Game Boy games), or by using a sequence of pre-recorded noises or musical notes (as in many of the "get a rupee" or "puzzle solved" jingles). These end up being the "Recorded" sounds.

In many cases, an emulator can be used to log the game's audio to a Wave file as it's played, giving a perfect-quality ("lossless") recording. For systems where emulators are not advanced or fast enough to feasibly make recordings, I'll instead go the old-fashioned route and plug my console's RCA audio cables directly into the computer, and record the audio input with a Wave editor. The quality of these "line-in" recordings is usually near-perfect, and any slight interference noise can be removed with a noise reduction filter.

The process for eliminating music and noises from recorded sounds has evolved through lots of experimentation.

Most emulators for earlier games systems can individually disable any of the several sound channels, leaving only the sounds I want to record. If a sound uses multiple channels or gets interrupted by music, I sometimes need to make several, separate recordings and then re-sync them with a Wave editor.

Games for the Nintendo 64 and onward process their audio differently and don't always rely on a number of channels which can simply be toggled, so recording specific sounds takes a variety of techniques. The first thing to try is finding silent areas in the games. In Zelda games there are often a few places the player can go with no music or background noises, and little-to-no echo, but usually once you find them, only a limited amount of sounds and player manouvers will be available.

More silent areas can be created using GameShark codes, which can alter the games in a number of ways, such as: preventing music from loading; letting the player reach silent areas that are normally inaccessible; and "actor hacking", a technique that can change which objects/characters appear in a given area, letting you remove certain sources of background noises and swap in other sound-making characters. Each of the methods has its strengths and its drawbacks and, naturally, not every desired sound can be recorded.

There are several other methods that I've discovered and employed. One is a hidden Sound Test in the "Debug" version of Ocarina of Time: Master Quest, only accessible with a GameShark code. Another is to use a hex editor on the actual ROMs of certain games, to alter the code that makes a certain sound play when speaking to an NPC. These methods each have advantages, drawbacks, and limitations that take time and testing to work through, and I may have already exhausted them!

With the GameCube and Wii games, I record most sounds straight from the console by plugging those red & white RCA cables into my PC's line-in audio input. Once again, the first approach is to find silent areas in the games and record as much as possible. That works fine for a while, but getting the most out of recording takes a more devious approach. Using "homebrew" software on a modified Wii console, I can copy the games to my PC, then edit their audio data using a variety of programs to isolate and silence any unwanted background sound effects or musical tones. Then comes the fun part: playing back these modified, "silenced" games on the Wii, straight from a USB drive!

(See also: Modified Wii?! Can you show me how to do that?)

Gathering these sounds has involved playing the same portion(s) of a game over and over, making lots of audio recordings and making lots of notes on each one. I'm sorry to make excuses, it's just a lot of hard work that sometimes isn't feasible. I might be able to add more Enemy/Boss sounds as long as everybody's okay with having incomplete and unlabeled sets!

(See also: Are there any other ways I can help the site grow?)

For sound effects from the Super Mario Bros. series, try visiting The Mushroom Kingdom or Mario Fan Games Galaxy.

They'll also work in any Wave editor, such as GoldWave or Audacity, which is where you can use these loopable sounds to make your own sound effects. Just load the sound, copy it, and paste it onto itself as many times as you want, until you have one long sound that you can edit however you like.

Some loopable sounds on this site are accompanied by "start" and/or "end" sounds. These are the parts that are heard before the portion that loops, or after the looping portion is finished. You can copy and paste these to the beginning or the end of your long, looped sound to make it complete.

Once the sound files are stored on your phone, open your standard music player and find the sounds you want. On many phones, you'll find an option to "Set As Ringtone". It's that easy!

Depending on your device's operating system or your own preferences, you may want to convert these sounds to another format first.

(See also: How do I convert sounds to other formats?)

The following instructions should help to prepare your ringtones for specific devices. If you have any corrections or ways to simplify the processes, please contact me!

Note: Due to frequent updates to Apple's iTunes and iOS, the following information may be outdated.

While some versions of the iPhone include the "Set As Ringtone" option, they give you little control over the portion and duration of the sound (or song) that will become the ringtone. Some iPhones lack this option altogether. One way around this is to check out some of the many free iPhone apps that can aid in customising your ringtone. One popular app is called Ringtone Designer. Another way is to correctly format the sounds before transferring them to your iPhone.

The iPhone will only recognise ringtones in the AAC audio format, with the ".m4a" file extension manually changed to ".m4r". They should also be under 30 seconds long; sometimes up to 40 seconds will work, but 30 is a safe length to be sure the sound is a compatible ringtone.

If your desired sound is already under 30 seconds, or if you've constructed your own sound of that length, Great! If you already know how to convert it to a .m4a (.m4r) AAC file, Great! Now just load the sound in iTunes (it should appear in the "Tones" library) and sync it to your iPhone like any other sounds/songs.

If you aren't sure how to make the proper conversions, they can be done within iTunes itself. First, load your not-yet-ready sound in iTunes, right-click it, and select "Get Info". There, under the "Options" tab, you can enter a "Stop Time" and/or a "Start Time" to limit the sound's length (if necessary). Click "OK", then right-click the sound again and select "Create AAC Version". Now, delete the file from the iTunes library and go to where it was stored on your hard drive. Change the file extension to ".m4r", drag it back into iTunes, and you're set! After syncing to your iPhone, the sound should appear in the list of available ringtones.

Note: The following Android-related information has not been verified to work on all devices.

My own Samsung Android phone makes things quite a bit easier. Not only can its music player use "Set As Ringtone" on any sound or song; if you place the file in a folder called "Ringtones" when transferring it to the phone's memory card, it will automatically appear in the phone's list of default ringtones.

In addition, placing the sound file in a folder called "Notifications" appears to be the only way to select the sound for notifications (text messages, etc.)

I recommend either keeping the sounds in the Wave format if they're very short, or converting them to the Ogg Vorbis (.ogg) format. It has excellent low-bitrate compression (especially for basic sound effects) and doesn't add tiny "silent gaps" to the beginning and end of the file like many other formats do, so you can use a loopable sound flawlessly, without any little "pop" noises.

To make a ringtone loop indefinitely (until you answer it!) on an Android device, use an Information Tag Editor to add the custom tag: ANDROID_LOOP, and for its value, type: true.

Some popular tag editors include Mp3tag and ID3 Tag Editor (both for Windows). You can also try Kid3, a slightly more complex tag editor which also runs on Mac and Linux.

Kid3 and dBpoweramp are capable of adding regular and custom tags to Wave files. Mp3tag can also add tags to Wave files - among many other formats - but you first need to allow this through its Options menu. Go to the Tags options to find a list of "incoming files" to which you can add "*.wav", then go to Tag Panel options to create any new types of tags (such as ANDROID_LOOP) that you'd like the program to manage.

(See also: What's the difference between "recorded" and "ripped" sounds?)

All this is to say: A lot of the sounds you hear in Zelda games are actually on the quiet side to begin with! If you've saved any of our sound files to your computer or mobile device, you can use one of the programs listed below (or any other sound editing program) to adjust their volume to suit your needs.

(See also: How do I edit these sounds?)

Sometimes, you might find that our sounds won't play properly, or at all, because of their short length. Several common audio players, like Winamp or Windows Media Player, as well as certain browser plugins, will sometimes skip a tiny moment at the beginning and/or end of a sound. Or they'll miscalculate the length of a sound file, rounding it down to zero. So if a sound is quite short, your audio player might act like there's nothing there.

Frustrating as this might be when you're trying to listen to some sounds, you can hear them in full by loading them in a sound editing program, or any other program designed to make use of sound files, such as a music tracker. One way to avoid this problem is to use a sound editor to add a fraction of a second of silence to the beginning and end of a sound file. Another way is to try using a different audio player!

All sound files are tested and formatted with proper headers before being added to this site. If you believe you've found a file that is genuinely corrupted, please let me know.

GoldWave, compatible with Windows XP and newer, is my personal favourite. A free trial is available at the link above, and I'll soon be adding a basic GoldWave tutorial right here in this FAQ.

Audacity, compatible with Windows, Mac, Linux and others, is completely free software! It uses a multi-track environment for sound editing, which may appear more complicated at first, but is ideal for splicing and mixing various sounds together.

If you use Windows XP or older, even the good old Sound Recorder (sndrec32.exe) has some basic effects and editing features you might find useful!

Note: If using Audacity, you need to select "Export Audio" instead of "Save As".

Or, you can check out dBpoweramp Music Converter, an amazing program for Windows that converts audio to (and from) over a dozen formats, with just a few clicks. It's designed for simplicity and highly recommended! Get this, and you can completely ignore the following advice on conversion to MP3, AAC, and Ogg Vorbis formats.

If you wish to convert your sounds to MP3 and want more precise control over the quality settings, you can try using LAME (currently at version 3.99), one of the most popular and high-quality MP3 encoding libraries. LAME is a command-line program, so if you're like most people and would prefer a graphical user interface, try RazorLame for Windows.

The AAC (.m4a / iTunes) audio format is intended as the "successor" to MP3; many devices (including Nintendo DSi & 3DS) now use AAC as their standard format, and iPhones typically only allow custom sounds and ringtones in this format. There are several AAC codecs available, such as the free Nero AAC for Windows and Linux. As each codec varies in certain aspects of sound quality, it's often recommended to use Apple's own AAC codec via iTunes or QuickTime. Alternately, a Windows command-line program called qaac allows the use of Apple's codec without installing either iTunes or QuickTime (though one of their installer .exe files is still required).

For more information and tools for using Ogg Vorbis (.ogg), an all-around good quality and highly compatible format of audio file, head to www.vorbis.com. One simple, drag-and-drop program worth checking out is oggdropXPd for Windows. A similar program with a similar name for Mac is Ogg Drop.

Please feel free to send in your recordings if you believe they meet this standard, or they're close enough that a bit of touch-up editing could do the trick; please also include some details about the process and tools you used to record them. Whether or not they'll be posted also depends on how soon I plan to rip/record my own copies.

I could also use your recordings as reference material!

(See also: Are there any other ways I can help the site grow?)

For any further information about donations, please contact Dayjo by e-mail.

REFERENCE MATERIAL

What:  Reference material mainly refers to gameplay videos which demonstrate Legend of Zelda sound effects that are missing from this site. This may include NPC voices, enemy and boss sounds, background noises, jingles, and more. Reference material will be most useful for games from the GameCube onward, but there might also be some earlier sounds that I've completely missed!

These videos can be tremendously helpful, since my limited Internet access doesn't allow me the time to browse videos myself. Simply playing through a game on my own to listen for sounds forces me to rely on memory and/or written notes, which is a lot of extra, unreliable work.

They're also fantastic if you have specific sound requests!

Why:  Many of the sound effects that I could potentially rip from games' data are unlabeled or have undescriptive names. I may recognise some, but not all of them. Reference videos can help me sort these sounds more easily and supply them quickly.

Conversely, some sounds need to be recorded from gameplay (rather than ripped), and having reference videos showing the locations or conditions for hearing them will help me get the job done.

Also! Some characters in The Wind Waker reportedly have different voices in the Japanese version of the game. Any documentation of this would be helpful.

How:  Simply send me the URL for a video on YouTube or similar sites, along with a brief description of the sound effects it demonstrates and the approximate times at which they're heard in the video. You can find lots of gameplay scenes in "Let's Play" video series, but these often contain commentary, and I'd prefer shorter videos with clear audio.

Important! Remember that many Zelda characters, especially enemies, make a lot of vocal sounds that could go un-heard in a single, quick video. For example, Bokoblins tend to have "resting", "suspicious", and "searching" voices that might only be heard if Link approaches them cautiously or retreats from combat. This is of course in addition to the several "alerted", "attacking", "hurt", and "dying" voices you'll encounter. Another example is Doc Bandam, the Chu Jelly Juice Shop owner from The Wind Waker; although he makes a few vocal sounds that come up often in conversation, he also makes a sound that's only heard on Link's first visit, and another that's only heard when Link brings him the "rare" Blue Chu Jelly. The point I'm making is that the more thorough the reference materials, the better! Keep this in mind if you choose to record your own videos for reference material!

SAVED GAMES

What:  Saved game files, for Wii Zelda titles from the North American (NTSC-U) region. Any number of saved game files at any significant points in these games would be helpful, but I'm hoping to eventually collect enough saves to be able to jump to almost any plot point or level of completion in a matter of minutes. (Listed below are some samples as a rough guideline.)

You may wish to contact me beforehand if you want to contribute a set of saved games, to make sure your chosen area of your chosen game hasn't already been covered. GameCube saves are also welcomed, if you have the ability to copy them.

So I'm turning to you, the visitors, for help! By developing a collection of saved game files spanning an entire game, I can quickly and easily jump to any cutscene, which could supplement or negate the need for reference videos. More importantly, I can quickly jump to any action scene, time-sensitive area or character interaction where sound effects can only be recorded, rather than ripped.

How:  Play through your game of choice and make up to three separate, useful saves at the start of significant points in the game. These points should typically be several minutes of gameplay apart; after reaching a new location or beginning a new quest. You'll need to quit after each save, copy your save to another slot ("Quest Log"), and resume from there - except in Twilight Princess, where you can choose a different slot each time you save.

Please refer to the following example of a set of five Twilight Princess saved games, set in between the Goron Mines and Lakebed Temple:

Saved game file #1 Quest Log 1: In Kakariko Village, after the post-Mines cutscene. Quest Log 2: In Hyrule Field (Eldin), before entering Twilight. Quest Log 3: Before entering Hyrule Castle Town. Saved game file #2 Quest Log 1: At Telma's bar, before heading to the Light Spirit. Quest Log 2: After falling into the depleted Lake Hyrule. Quest Log 3: After being flown up to Zora's river. Saved game file #3 Quest Log 1: In Death Mountain, before warping the meteorite. Quest Log 2: Back in Lake Hylia, before seeing the Light Spirit. Quest Log 3: Before the battle for the final Tear of Light. Saved game file #4 Quest Log 1: In Lake Hylia, with light restored to Hyrule. Quest Log 2: Before entering Hyrule Castle Town again. Quest Log 3: Beginning to escort Prince Ralis to Kakariko. Saved game file #5 Quest Log 1: In Kakariko, before following Queen Rutela. Quest Log 2: In Kakariko, before setting out to Lakebed Temple. Quest Log 3: At Zora's River during item-fetching.

Once you've got useful saves on all three save slots, copying and sharing your saved games is simple. With an SD memory card plugged into your Wii, select Wii Options, the bottom-left button on the system's Home menu. Select Data Management, then Save Data, then Wii. Click the Twilight Princess icon then select Copy to save it on your SD card. Plug that sucker into your computer (if you don't have an SD slot, you can try putting it in a digital camera and then connecting that) and browse to the folder: /private/wii/title/RZDE/ where you'll find the file data.bin - that's the one you need to copy to your computer.

If you're planning to share several of these files with me, you may wish to rename them to something descriptive, such as: data_GerudoDesert01.bin. Once you've got them all ready, just e-mail them my way! Including a note or text file describing each Quest Log would be extra-helpful.

SOUND IDENTIFICATION

Are you exceptionally familiar with Legend of Zelda games for the Nintendo DS and 3DS? If so, then I've got a simple, yet very crucial task that needs your help.

In my posession are some heaping handfuls of sound rips - effects and music - that need to be verified before they're added to this site's collection. Since I don't yet own a Nintendo DS of any variety, and these games are highly requested, you'd be speeding up this high-priority process by a great deal!

Some of my rips have filenames with vague indications of their use, and some of them sound fairly obvious but might have a different use. Some of my music rips - jingles, fanfares and such - even have descriptive titles but require a brief explanation of what those titles actually mean.

If you're interested in Sound Identification, simply contact me by e-mail and we'll get started! There may also be a need for Sound Identification of console Zelda games, both new and old, in the near future.

EMULATOR ASSISTANCE

Much of this site's content is made possible with the help of emulators for various Nintendo systems. Each of the programs that I've used have their own advantages and limitations, and I'm currently on the lookout for new or updated emulators with specific features to help me create more, higher-quality content.

If you have a decent knowledge of emulators for Game Boy (Color), SNES, or Nintendo 64, especially ones that have accurate audio emulation and precise control over sound output, please get in touch and I'll describe what I need!

A TRIO OF HEROES

Although I only have occasional access to Tri Force Heroes, at some point I would like to call on other players to coordinate some testing and recording of various sounds.

This will involve trading 3DS Friend Codes and meeting at an arranged time. Players must be from North America.

As each Hero is randomly assigned one of four voices (based on either Ocarina of Time, The Wind Waker, Spirit Tracks, or A Link Between Worlds) when they begin a new saved file, it would be helpful to know which one you have.

SITE CLEANUP

Well, this one should be easy to explain.

Found any typos or broken links? Errors in this FAQ? Please let me know! Got an idea for a better way to describe any sound(s) in this collection, or know of any alternate uses that aren't listed? You know what to do.

Other suggestions about our site's design/layout/content are welcome too!

Reference material such as extended videos of Midna speaking - or better yet, save states for the Dolphin emulator at locations where she'll speak in specific "moods" - would be very helpful.

(See also: Are there any other ways I can help the site grow?)

I would love to make The Fi-Speaker, but I can't figure out how her sentences are constructed. Too much echo! If anyone is able to play Skyward Sword on an emulator that can slow the game down enough to hear each individual "word", how about contacting me?

(See also: Site Staff / Contact Information)

Please feel free to write to me again (by e-mail). I'll do better this time!

(See also: Site Staff / Contact Information, About The Extended Downtime)

So while I technically shouldn't encourage you to download these sound files, I do encourage you to use them for any creative, not-for-profit purpose you wish, including: desktop themes; ringtones; fan games; animations; and playing "Marco Polo" in public with Navi's voice clips.

tl;dr: Nothing to worry about.

I would prefer if you credit me ("HelpTheWretched" or "HTW") as the sounds' supplier along with our URL www.ZeldaSounds.com, and list the name(s) of the game(s) they're from as their source. It's entirely up to you, though.

And yes, if you make an interesting project with any of these sound effects, I'd be glad to check it out, so just drop me an e-mail.

(See also: Site Staff / Contact Information)

I'm very willing to allow this if you tell me your site's address, which sound(s) you'd like to post, and your reason for wanting to post them. I'd prefer if you chose a small variety of sounds rather than any entire section or game, and I'd also ask you to include a link back to this site. Too much work has gone into this collection to simply let anybody copy it for their own gain, but I can be reasonable about allowing some. Thanks for your understanding!

If you wish to provide download mirrors, please contact Dayjo.

(See also: Site Staff / Contact Information)

It says "under construction" because of some very minor cosmetic bugs that I had reported to the programmer. We then began discussing all sorts of new features, and well, just never got around to fixing that little bug. Aside from that, the QSS should work just fine.

We began this site as a very small resource, with no need for being fancy. We've had some growing pains due to the site's structure, and although I appreciate the value of Style Sheets, Flash, social media integration and other modern design techniques, I still have a certain fondness for the days when having a presence on the WWW was largely a DIY process.

A complete re-design of this site has been under consideration for some time now. If anybody has some good suggestions or advice on layout design, typography, etc., I'd be thankful for the help!

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(Don't tell anyone I said that... It's a secret to everybody!)

However, I'd be glad to let someone else show you!

You can find quite a few guides to modifying a Wii, and other consoles, with just a Google search. Most of them should not be trusted because they may contain vague instructions, missing steps, or terms that you might not be familiar with. The best place to look is the Complete Softmod Guide. It has everything written concisely and takes into account the different regions and revisions of the Wii.

Warning: Even with the Complete Softmod Guide's help, I recommend reading all the steps, several times, before attempting to mod your Wii. Make sure not to confuse any terms, such as ISO / IOS / iOS / mIOS / cIOS. Parts of the process involve using some hacked system files which will not be distributed by me or by the Complete Softmod Guide since they still contain portions of copyrighted code, so exercise caution when searching for those files.

(Fun fact: The first way ever discovered to run unsigned code and perform software mods on a Wii involved exploiting a glitch in Twilight Princess!)

The Super Famicom (Japanese version of SNES) had an add-on called Satellaview, which could download games via satellite that were broadcast on a fixed schedule, hence the "BS" or "Broadcast Satellite". This version of The Legend of Zelda which began broadcasting in August 1995 had a smaller but similar overworld, all-new dungeons, and featured the nameless Satellaview mascots instead of Link. Each broadcast session was about an hour long, and the timeline would continue with two additional dungeons each following week. You could only face Ganon on the fourth week if all eight Triforce pieces had been recovered.

But that's not all; broadcast along with the game was orchestrated music and voice acting segments. Periodically the game would pause while "The Old Man" spoke, informing players of newly-accessible areas and discounts at certain shops. Sometimes he would even grant the player temporary power-ups or magically destroy all enemies on the screen.

A "2nd Quest" was broadcast at a later date, followed by Inishie no Sekiban (Ancient Stone Tablets), a similar concept based instead on the style of A Link to the Past. Just like the three CD-i games, these are authorised by Nintendo but considered non-canon.

Although Satellaview went offline in 2000, a group of dedicated coders have collected and pieced together all the available memory dumps of the BS The Legend of Zelda games, and made all the necessary alterations to preserve them as stand-alone, playable games. Get your emulator or flash cartridge ready and check them out at this link.

Naturally, I couldn't pick just one favourite game, since there are a few that I like the best for different reasons. You can probably tell from this site's character artwork that enjoy Majora's Mask; it's the most interesting Zelda game to me, and the one I replay the most.

The game that I had the most fun with is definitely Zelda II: The Adventure of Link, followed closely by Twilight Princess (which could have been my overall favourite, given a few small tweaks) and Tri Force Heroes.

For the record, I enjoyed the motion controls in Skyward Sword.  Hyah!  Hyah!