Liminal Spaces You Can Never Reach in Ocarina of Time (Zelda)

[@SwankyBox]

What games would you want to see liminal spaces covered in next? Also if you want, grab a Zardy plush keychain here shop.makeship.com/3qG78oa to celebrate the 2 year anniversary of my game!

[@PokemonRebornFan]

Happy 2nd anniversary of Zardy's Maze

[@pbgamer115]

Would also like to see this with majoras mask

[@Cliffordlonghead]

Awesome video

[@Cliffordlonghead]

@@PokemonRebornFan WHY

[@Cliffordlonghead]

@@pbgamer115 WHY

[@tigerspruce8580]

Man, checking out the transitional area for Princess Zelda's courtyard/castle really gives "keep off the grass" a whole new meaning.

[@dhans9662]

"go touch grass" Mf i cant, i phase through it

[@Jacob39822Gaming]

Now its Keep off the flowers

[@michaelfalcone7110]

Liminal spaces? When Link pulled the Master Sword he got trapped in the Backrooms for seven years.

[@sxg0017]

Zelda backrooms mod when-

[@wilsonkilmer9776]

This reminds me of Any Austin’s “Unremarkable and odd places in Ocarina of Time” video that’s part of his unremarkable and odd places series. This game has such a special emotional atmosphere! Love it

[@chompythebeast]

I know Swanky here is familiar with Austin, he's been getting a lot of comments like these on some of his recent OoT vids and he's responded to some of them. But I agree, this is very reminiscent of Austin's concepts. Of course, Swanky is all about that Publish-A-Book-On-How-To-Be-A-Successful-KZbinr-polish, and Austin is all about that raw, emotional feel

[@SwankyBox]

Honestly I want to thank everyone who pointed out his channel since the desert video. Prior to doing a deep dive into OOT this summer I didn't know it existed (which is kinda a shame). The energy behind his videos is very similar to the feelings that drew me into making my mystery videos and Pixel Portal series about environments I was nostalgically connected to. Seeing someone speak about these games and obsess over their little quirks is 100% the content I'm into!

[@RedSpade37]

@@SwankyBox That's really cool, honestly! This community is pretty darn decent.

[@ninja_tony]

Any Austin's channel is fantastic, I just found it recently, and fell in love with everything about it. Anyone that enjoys SwankyBox's videos will most likely be a fan of Austin's as well!

[@TaroKunLife]

That Temple of Time transition used to trip me out, even as a kid.

[@thaedleinad]

It's very poorly done.

[@wickedishiccy7621]

It always astounds me how they worked things out like this in older 3D games. Stuff we never thought about as kids, how its all basically smoke and mirrors to make the world seem connected, real and alive.

[@davidker8820]

It’s time for the ultimate Ocarina of Time question: what happens if the Gerudo guards arrest Link while he’s fishing in a liminal space? My guess is that it either unlocks the Triforce or allows you to beat the running man.

[@jordanrobshaw1406]

Teleport you to the unicorn fountain

[@alvaro4996]

You can now enter the pyramid

[@blitzie66]

sky temple

[@TheGoldenDunsparce]

This reminds me of when I played Banjo-Tooie and tried to fly after defeating one of the dragons in that fire-ice mountain area. It's essentially a fire level and an ice level combined, with an ice mountain and a fire mountain across from one another, claimed by fire and ice dragons respectively. When you look across from either mountain, you see the peaks of the other. If you decide to try to fly as Kazooie alone, you can fly all the way to the other mountin... But it's literally just a super super super far away shitty .jpeg-quality flat image of a mountain peak, and nothing else... It's hard to explain, but it was a total mind-fook for me when I crashed into the image and didn't actually transition to the other mountin peak as expected when I flew across...

[@anlev11]

I actually did the exactly same thing as you

[@RTU130]

Ye

[@williamdrum9899]

Glitch in the matrix

[@2l84me8]

Yep. Like a giant painting of a mountain that wraps around the entire battlefield.

[@CrazyMetroid]

Did the same thing as a kid 😂

[@KairuHakubi]

This is so surreal because I've SEEN the loading happen, yet I never realized what was actually happening as the map changes.

[@ManoredRed]

Techniques like this are still very common in modern videogames. Dark Souls uses low-poly models of distant areas you can see from where you are extensively.

[@NickMC512]

The KZbinr Illusory wall has some great videos going into this in great detail. Highly recommended. 🙂

[@staceyjordan2001]

that was really interesting, it was cool seeing the places with transitional areas look different from what they look like when passing through

[@toxicmanbaby1069]

For those who don't know, the practice of loading a lower-quality object when at a distance is called "LOD", or "Level of Detail". I'm not sure about N64 games, but later on, on Gamecube and so on, most objects, enemies and NPCs in a game will have lower quality models for when you look at them from a distance. The main one you see up close is LOD0 (zero), if you back away it's LOD1, then LOD2 and so on. Try looking at an enemy in later Zelda games, leave it alone and keep backing away while looking at it. Eventually, you'll see it pop from LOD0 to LOD1 (I think it's noticeable in Twilight Princess if you pay attention) Anyways, Im really surprised they had the collisions for so many of the OOT rooms, I would've expected them all to be like Princess Zelda's courtyard.

[@ShelbyAQD]

I love videos that dive into obscure oddities of the low poly era. I'm currently developing a small game primarily inspired by Mario 64 and the N64 Zelda games. But with the additional quirk of leaning hard into the kind of weird playground rumors and prank articles you'd sometimes find in gaming magazines back then. This video has given me a delightfully devilish idea for my project, so thanks!

[@hylianmono]

what's the name of the game?

[@ShelbyAQD]

@@hylianmono Bunny Knight 2 is my current title, though I may change it before it's actually released. There's no info about it online just yet.

[@adamantsteel634]

@@ShelbyAQD so there’s a bunny knight 1?

[@ShelbyAQD]

@@adamantsteel634 Nope. It's an oddity to confuse players until they find certain secrets in the game.

[@choosetolivefree]

Whats the word on this mr dev

[@BR-jw7pm]

Welcome to Swankybox where we take the camera out of bounds and try to find secrets and new discoveries in some of our favorite games

[@shawnwolf5961]

Programing stuff like this is REALLY cool!! Glad you share stuff like this, especially with Ocarina of Time which defined my early teen years!!!

[@EggLordTobias]

If you are scared of empty rooms in games then I imagine you are the type of person irl who looks over their shoulder at least three times every minute when they go outside.

[@rysea9855]

This is just boundary break for ocarina of time, I love it

[@archivelibrarian6818]

3:19 everywhere at the end of ocarina of time

[@saschachristensen1908]

I really love the background music. Bomberman 64 was one of the best games back in the days and still is I think. Really loved the soundtrack

[@KairuHakubi]

I was just thinking about transitional areas while playing xenoblade 3 they did some amazing stuff this time, what they've been kind of building up to.. first game had huge but largely still things in the background that they had to do a new cheat for for every map, second had the thing you were on MOVING and needing to see distant giant heads gently swaying or whatever, but this one had MULTIPLE massive things in the background of every map, and while each map is huge, they're more interconnected, so... they had to find little ways to cheat.. and there are entire long 'roads' of land that you can see, but never actually be on, because you warp across them once you cross a certain threshold. Piecing the roughly ring-shaped world together in my head while exploring it has been incredible.

[@robo3007]

A lot of people have been in the unloaded space in the well before! Speedrunners go there to collect bombchus early, or if you want to get the glitch that gives you black gauntlets those bombchus are required for that too.

[@nemoisnobody]

Really cool. Kinda gives you an idea of what the devs were thinking and how they solved problems getting things to work with very limited memory to work with.

[@redhatcore]

I was obsessed with these as a kid. The save statue in Clock Town in Majora's Mask is my favorite.

[@MartKart8]

I think this is really useful when developing a game.

[@HeyitsEkim]

6:52 this is extremely ironic since this location is the most common and most known one out of this entire video, due to almost every speedrun route that needs chu's diving to unloaded botw

[@DeltaPro137]

Im suprised you didn't revisit the shadow temple to try after you beat the Boss

[@SwankyBox]

I'm gonna be honest - for a lot of these deep dives I'm like super meticulous, and then there's just times when something obvious totally just slips my mind. This is one of those times. 😅

[@Preston241]

@@SwankyBoxdidn’t occur to me either mate.

[@sterlingcampbell2116]

What do you mean? You don't need to do this to go back to the shadow temple?

[@Preston241]

@@sterlingcampbell2116 if you go back to the boss room after beating the boss then the cut scene won’t trigger.

[@sterlingcampbell2116]

@@Preston241 what cut scene? What does this isn't to do with out of bound areas? I still don't get what he should have done

[@michaelcinotti4130]

Really cool stuff! I'm sure it's happened, but it'd be nice to come across a developer easter egg message that says something like "You shouldn't be here"

[@UltimateTobi]

The Bomberman 64 music, especially Altair's boss theme, was a nice touch.

[@theknightowl3476]

Lol!~ Modders should take all of these liminal spaces between OoT and MM and create an entire additional dungeon using them. x3 haha...

[@ENJAY64_]

Just when I needed more OOT!

[@Kitsudote]

Poor poor windmill guy, be like: "Let me teach you that song I hate, so you can use it and make it the reason I hate it." Broken physics ain't like you bro.

[@jacobtrolo2310]

0:14 I remember as a kid, during a Goldeneye multiplayer game getting knocked outside of the wall in, I believe it was the Temple level. I'm pretty sure that was before we had Internet, or KZbin even existed. I'm pretty sure it was a grenade or rocket that did it.

[@casualamber]

that elf with a box in the intro is sure having a good time 😏😏

[@muhammad1502]

Let’s try to find a liminal space in real life y’all. That’s how we’ll know we’re in a simulation 🤙

[@InuYasha86000]

one spot you didn't check was in zora's domain, the cave in the outside wall that you can normally only access when zoras domain is frozen over.

[@Sairu_Bluest]

The use of Bomberman music in this video GOT me, I love that song sm

[@Solarallergie]

i love the majoras mask one for speedrunning where you can activate an owl statue out of bounds than gives you instant quicktravel to all the bigger locations :D

[@Majo_Ellen]

Bomberman Altair theme, my heart stopped. Favorite character as child. Memories flood. How appropriate it was the Temple of Time. ... Ahem.

[@Zet237yt]

This video:*starts with Glover music* Me:”Alright, you got my attention.”

[@Knightmessenger]

There's one area where this loading zone trigger was used on purpose. Just past Mido on the path to the deku tree, deku babas seem to appear out of nowhere. Usually they can be seen from much further away in their doormat state. This is a rare instance where something is loaded right near the boundary.

[@bobmalibaliyahmarley1551]

You should do one of these about Majoras Mask, as it has much more Liminal Spaces/Forced perspective Low Poly areas than Ocarina of Time does, especially in transition in the open world.

[@WildFyr]

I like how most of these are used for Speed runs, unloading these areas also unloads things like doors and blocks but loading zones stay. So it is used commonly to get into the shadow temple without dins fire or as a child

[@YosherYoshi]

Can't you just beat Bongo Bongo and then go back to that room?

[@wallamazoo01]

Game makers do this right now all the time, too. Going out of bounds is the older term before liminal spaces, which I think is the more appropriate term, as many of those out of bounds glitches help speed runners.

[@brittany16950]

These never get old. Thank you Swankybox!!

[@wolvensoul9147]

One of my personal favorite games to mess with is Jedi outcast 2. You can noclip into the cutscene areas and mess with the stationary actor models. Really cause chaos with some of the additional cheats. I managed to get the main character, kyle katarn, to make out with the side of the love interest face in one of the cutscenes

[@HotelKatz]

As you were exploring the Great Deku Tree, I was reminded of The Caretaker's 'Everywhere at the End of Time' Album. So your video also gave me the idea of exploring a person's memories as the person was losing their memory, which in this case would be Link. That would be a tragic game. Link having one last adventure in his memories, just as his mind was starting to undergo memory loss.

[@austinsmith7731]

Thatd be a good idea for a detective game. Like someone has a crime done to them and you have to find the memory before they pass away in the hospital. Like a sad version of assassins creed lol

[@Wiimeiser]

@@austinsmith7731 Or _Ghost Trick_ meets _To The Moon_ or something like that.

[@dialaforawesome]

@@Wiimeiser aw, someone beat me to the Ghost Trick comparison

[@RaphBlade7]

I really would like to see Swanky explore the underground portions of Dampe's without the timer, as it would be nice to see him explore around! Also at least Dampe has the courtesy to actually race Link, unlike the Running Man!"

[@lpfan4491]

It's moreso a timetrial than a race.

[@wompastompa3692]

You can actually get to some of these in standard gameplay. I'm honestly surprised you didn't show off the Graveyard/Shadow Temple entrance transition.

[@EltaleLibrarian]

You missed the coolest ones! The rooms before the boss rooms are amazing, and often totally different!

[@phoenixdark9]

I think a Part 2 episode containing the pre-boss rooms would be excellent. They give a lot of insight into earlier development concepts. An example would be (Spoiler Warning)… The room before the Fire Temple boss room shows that early concepts had Link needing to hammer two pillars down from above (probably one from each side of Spectacle Rock) instead of just one.

[@rossboedy8456]

everyone watching this knew it wasnt in the game, but imagined you could reachthe triforce somewhere using this stuff

[@xbinxpurp6118]

crazy how i noticed lagg when jumping thru...but also when climbing up like shown how lighting changed i never got he right angle but now it all makes sense. i noticed this before i even knew what it was lol

[@3NTR4PT4]

The Deku Tree architecture always creeped me out... who built it? The Sheikah? The Kokiri? Its so weird

[@choosetolivefree]

Huh? You don't build trees. They grow. From a seed. In the ground.

[@stephenrossi1918]

Love the Bomberman64 music you used for this video.

[@Dug88]

If you play Ocarina of Time using the Ships of Harkinian port you can disable the LOD settings and force the game to load high res resources at any distance effectively removing every one of these low res areas.

[@revinevan87]

4:46 bomberman 64 music. interesting choice. it works

[@keithtorgersen9664]

I can’t remember what game it was, but awhile back I had watched a video about Star Wars game, it might be knights of the old republic but I can’t be sure. There’s a liminal space where you can go to a certain room and if you take this really hard secret entrance you have access to certain Easter eggs. But if you go to the exact same room via a normal way, the Easter eggs don’t show up.

[@robsixtyfour9204]

This must be how echoes of wisdom got their "still world" idea.

[@shinywhimsicott3047]

The bottom of the Fire Temple one feels like they wanted to use it for a Smash stage. Its pretty neat.

[@AlexandraStubbs]

Liminal spaces make me feel uneasy. The Oceania of time liminal space and transitions are fascinating!

[@CableWrestler]

I used to know what liminal spaces felt like, but 20 years later and traveling at least a quarter of a million miles, I just don't know what the fuss is about personally.

[@themanbehindthemask5675]

Thank you very much for this interesting video. There is a place in MM that you also need to take a closer look at. it is the water temple. As we all know, in the main room there is a huge turbine that turns left or right and the water flows into other rooms, depending on how we align the levers in the first room. There is a situation in which none of the levers point in one direction and the turbine should now stand still, but in this situation it is not possible to leave the first room. While playing, I asked myself what was going on in the main room and whether the water was standing still without flowing in one direction. It would be super cool if you could get to the bottom of this 😁

[@reedjohnson5916]

A question I asked myself over 20 years ago finally answered thank you SwankyBox

[@RetroCVBS]

Man I've been loving the OoT streak you've been on.

[@steelie7987]

There's Legend of zelda videos, then there's swankybox's voice on zelda videos.

[@TheDustmeister88]

When the camera zooms into the guy who's turning that instrument, I could see a Dark Side Phil situation.

[@MultiMMan]

The Bomberman 64 tunes really jive well with the vibe this video gives me.

[@darklordyianni4463]

Also: PLEEEEASE do MORE Zelda videos, with all kinds of unknown things, oddities, mysteries, glitches, etc. in the games!

[@XenoSOL985]

Imagine games like n64 where you can clip out of bounds and be stuck in games like sword art you can't die but you can't leave and no one can reach you because no one was intended to. That's definitely a horror story

[@johnnyguitar8067]

As someone who grew up in the UE1 era of games and loved noclipping in and out of places none of this really sticks out to me

[@3possumsinatrenchcoat]

"revisit this game *27 years* later..." please don't remind me how old i am swankybox

[@2NDFLB-CLERK]

▪️ It's 24 years. I thought this came out in 98. 🟥

[@victfv]

10:10 Are those overlapping scrolling textures on the lava? I didn't know the N64 could do that. I guess it would be possible with microcode, but it seems like it would be very expensive for the time.

[@Joe_334]

It feels like that place you meet young Zelda at is a spot in front of The Temple of Time ruins in Breath of the Wild...

[@DiamondDa1yak0]

You can send a ReDead out of bounds, just stand close to a wall with your back to it in the royal family tomb, let it attack you and mash buttons to get it off, doing so will cause it to fall into the void.

[@kazooha8174]

is it weird that I fall asleep to these videos at night sometimes? yes? okay.. I’ll go be weird then I dunno I think it’s just his voice

[@Zackaria_sMax]

6:05 does the ring around Mt. Doom usually clip through the top of the temple like that?

[@fieldsofmercury1291]

I have watched every single video of your Swanky, but the way pronoucnce words and your cadence truly perplexes me. What is going on?

[@Craigy2818]

These places freak me out, when I fall into them. Even borders which fade out or get foggy freak me out. I managed to see the Temple of Time on, on the 3DS version. You can hold L and look through the wall, at the right angle.

[@Wicksta473]

You should explore the southern swamp area in majoras mask if you clip out of bounds theres a huge area that would be the top of the swamp shop with plenty of weird stuff to see, you can also levitate back into Ikana Canyon from the waterfall behind the potion shop And in the area that you start the game and chase skull kid you can walk on an invisible ceiling above and still see below

[@Brandonrios365]

When you were in the Bongo Bongo room, maybe you could’ve tried to go in the unloaded version after the boss was defeated. That way the cutscene wouldn’t interrupt.

[@david_ga8490]

2:07 omg I remember that happening in the 3ds version

[@Weegee0DRONZER]

this video reminded me of a thing i like doing in lego star wars 1 where i push the cpu player out of bounds and tag to him to go to places im not supposed to go to lol

[@jraug44]

The loading behavior in Ocarina of Time is weird because Super Mario 64 loaded graphics of an area whenever you were in that area even if you got there an unintended way with glitches (aside from the loading zones in Dire Dire Docks, Wet-Dry World, and the Shifting Sand Land pyramid, which also change the collision and if you bypass those loading zones and go in that area you hit an invisible wall because the game prevents you from going anywhere where there's no floor below you) while this game behaves more like the DS version of Super Mario 64 where going into an area without going into the loading zone results in the graphics of the area not being loaded while the area still has its collision.

[@thundercat_pumyra]

That redead isn't a problem. Just hook/longshot into it. It pulls Link right to it and stuns it long enough to just walk away.

[@RyanHaney55]

9:49 Indiana Jones 3, right there!

[@Eyetrauma]

Weird that they did that fade to black in the fire temple despite not doing it in places like the Temple of Time. shoulda had a puff of smoke come up in each transition, it’d have fit thematically

[@whtiequillBj]

Yes, the spaces are liminal per the definition of them being transitional areas programatically, but the areas don't seem to have that sense of emptiness that is often characteristic of spaces that are considered liminal. Many times an uncanny feeling of non-belonging is a strong component of the feeling of liminality. A time or place which feels like something should be happening but, nothing is.

[@tonyrandall3146]

More about the clicks this one.

[@choosetolivefree]

Hmmm. But .. these spaces he's exhibiting are empty, to the point of floors and walls not really existing there. And a sense of non belonging? Is always going to be present when you're in places you couldn't or shouldn't enter.... So. Seems to me these locations tick those boxes

[@real_Furryratchet]

I always wanted to see the Hyrule castle courtyard without the camera limitation. Because I could never tell what the statues look like. They looked so weird to me.

[@eksmad]

I always wanted to see these. Thank you!

[@jaidens.g.1920]

these are super unnerving yet also really fasciinating

[@brandbusters183]

I was always obsessed with these kind of places.

[@MAZZ0Murder]

That was a lot I didn't realize, though noticed some of the janky transitions in a recent playthrough lol

[@Hexstream]

10:39 Now I REALLY want to see the Bongo Bongo liminal area. ;P Surely it's possible to disable the boss/cutscene trigger...

[@hernandovallejo]

They nearly feel like incomplete dioramas that you're looking on the wrong angle!

[@Adrastia]

Way up in the vertical shaft of the Fire Temple there's an unused door that can only be seen in the low res version. And I think that you can actually stand on the top of the shaft itself but it's been years so I'm not 100% sure.

[@jackb7647]

Link looks like a Bosmer in the thumbnail. I've also glitched into the low quality sword of time chamber on console decades ago!

[@nicholasharvey1232]

Of course a room that you're seeing from afar is not going to be rendered fully. The N64 works hard enough without rendering polygons that the player cannot possibly be currently interacting with. Super Mario 64 similarly doesn't draw or even load sections of the level that are far away from Mario. It's actually quite clever how Nintendo programmed their early 3D games to cut corners graphically in order to make video game magic like SM64 and OoT possible in a time when hardware limitations were very real. The levels themselves were even designed around these limitations, making players go through tunnels (like the one in Dire, Dire Docks) to conceal what is essentially half the course being erased from existence. The vertical shaft leading to the Deku Tree basement is no exception.

[@sleepykittyMMD]

can you do the liminal space between the sewers and the astrology lab in majora's mask? if you havn't yet, ive always wondered what if anything was there or if theres more sewer down there.

[@Matt-md5yt]

pretty cool video and I just bought your Zardy plush Keychain. the plush is adorable and I am helping you in a thing is good

[@inkandvinegar]

The Bomberman 64 soundtrack really takes me back