Random: Modder shows unused N64 Mic support in Zelda: Majora’s Mask
Every time Nintendo releases a system, it’s usually equipped with all sorts of peripherals, and during the N64 era, one of the more surprising ones was the microphone, aka the Nintendo 64 Voice Recognizer.
Although at that time there were only a few games that used this technology (one of them was Hey there, Pikachu!), one of the other The title was considered The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask. Modder ‘Skawo’ decided to highlight this code (again) after screening Decompile Majora’s mask.
It is worth mentioning how this function was originally “discovered and recorded by Zoinkity“. You can watch the original video uploaded six years ago on YouTube. The video from Skawo (above) demonstrates five voice commands, but here’s a bit more detail in the moderator’s own words:
Hidden in Majora’s Mask’s code is support for VRS (Nintendo 64 Voice Recognition System). On startup, the game searches for connected VRS in any of the controller ports, and there are five actions that can be activated using voice.
VRS support remains the same in all versions of the game – but they all expect the Japanese version of the device (NUS-020 JPN), and they all expect Japanese words to trigger activate certain actions. Unfortunately, this functionality was eventually disabled because the game was looking for 0x801D8E3C (in US 1.0) which was 3 before the voice command was triggered and it was never set to that value.
It may have been set in a function that was left out in the final release…I noticed this while scrolling through the recently completed Majora’s Mask decompilation, but it was originally released shown and recorded by @Zoinkity
As mentioned, this functionality was never provided in the “final release”, but as you can see, you can use the microphone to take pictures, request cow’s milk, find out how much time is left first When the moon sets, wake up the sleeping Deku Scrub and give the carrot to Epona to speed up.
Apparently there was also a sixth voice function called “sit” that was never used. It is believed that it is an order for the dogs in the game. This same voice function feature has also been previously highlighted by the YouTube channel’Did you knowPlay games‘ in an obscure truth rounded up.
