The Differences Between the Gold and Grey Cartridges
By: Jaetei
View Gray Cart View the Gold Cart
Just some background for those that don't know what I'm talking about: When Ocarina of Time was first released it came as a special edition gold colored cartridge. This was only supposed to last a couple weeks while the game was out, but since the game sold so quick you'd have to have lived somewhere where no one knew what Zelda was or you'd have to of reserved it. After all the copies of the gold version had ran out they started selling just normal colored grey cartridges. There was supposedly no difference between these two different versions of Ocarina of Time... or were there. This is were I come in and list the differences between these two versions of the game. Also another thing to add is there's actually 3 versions of the games: versions 1.0, 1.1, and 1.2. V1.1 and v1.2 are very similar exept that Ganondorf's blood is red in 1.1 and it's green in 1.2 the only major difference. V1.0 is the gold cartridges of the game. V1.1 are some very late versions of the gold cart and some early versions of the grey. V1.2 was released about a year after the game was first released and was totally fixed of any major glitches. So I'll be referring to the gold cart as version 1.0 and I'll be referring to versions 1.1 and 1.2 as the grey cart.
1.) The Swordless Link glitch
I'm sure this was discovered by plenty of people, but this glitch is recognized as being discovered at the site The Odyssey of Hyrule originally. What you did to perform this glitch was: get into the last fight with Ganon, and as soon as he knocked the Master Sword out of Link's hand you'd save and reset your game. When you opened the file again Link would start without his sword equiped and this allowed gamers to perform amazing glitches. I'm not going to go into the glitches this caused. Maybe I will if I put up a glitch page on OoT sometime. Well anyway it was discovered that only the people with the gold version of the game could do this glitch. People figured that Nintendo had discovered this glitch pretty early after the game was released and changed it when they started producing grey carts. Pretty mean, eh?
2.) Ganondorf's blood
Most who've beaten the game know this scene since its about the goriest thing they do with an E rating. When Link defeats Ganondorf in the first fight he grabs his throat and starts to breath heavily leading me to believe that they're suggesting Link just slit Ganondorf's throat. Well after he says some line he coughs up blood. Now it's the color of the blood you should pay attention to. In the gold cartridge they went for realism and made it red, but in the grey cartridge they changed its color to green. Hmm just like the ketchup. Well I think its pretty obvious that was just to violent for the non-existent children that play this game so they changed it to green.
3.) The sound effects
This isn't really noticed by anyone, but I just pay attention to it... or ever since that pig rumor. Well in the different versions the sound effects coming from objects work differently. So if you're near a stream you hear the trickling sound it makes and that stuff. In the gold you have to be right on top of the sound emiting object to hear it and it has to be on screen. In the grey you can hear it even if it isn't on the screen and you can be a lot farther away and it tends to fade instead of suddenly stop like in the gold. Finally an advantage to the grey.
4.) The fire temple music
Plain and simple in the gold the music in the fire temple has a chorus in the background, but in the grey the chorus is taken out. I discovered this was because the chorus sounded a lot like a Muslim chant so Nintendo took it out so Muslims would buy the game too :)
5.) The fishing pond trick
This is a glitch you can only do in gold and I may as well explain how. You'd go to the fishing pond as an adult and walk out on the water with the hover boots and cast while you where floating. When you did this you'd be able to move around while the line was cast and even be able to leave the pond. If you saved and reset with the fishing rod you'd be able to do the swordless Link glitch with it. This doesn't work in the grey another realized glitch the N fixed.
6.) The secret cutscene
This is actually a Game Shark code, but it doesn't work on version 1.2. I won't post the codes here or maybe anywhere since it was specifically discovered by the Abustess of Hyrule. Anyway what happened was it let you view the cutscene of Jabu Jabu sucking Link up just like when you give him a fish, but this time there's some strange pedastle with an ocarina engraved on it on the balcony where Jabu Jabu is. Something never seen before in normal gameplay.
7.) The box grammer error
On the back of the gold version's box they spelled environments wrong.
Well there goes. I may have not posted all since I just don't remember currently. If I do I'll update the page. If I never post a difference that you know about feel free to E-mail us.
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