Prelude Manual / Dark Link
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Dark Link

Dark Link is a boss actor in Ocarina of Time.

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Placement

CaveatAll of Dark Link's state lives in shared statics — two copies collapse onto one spawn point and fight over a single controller. Place only one.
CaveatHis spawn position is a hard anchor, and the placement you make is that anchor. While waiting he re-seats himself every frame 25 units from the spawn point on whichever side you are standing, so he never idles exactly where the marker sits. If he is ever knocked below the floor under him (more than 160 units under it) he is put back 120 units behind you, standing on the floor there — whatever height that floor happens to be, which is where a driven-off ledge costs you: he recovers onto the LOWER ground, not back up onto the ledge you placed him on. Only if that lands him more than 800 units from the spawn point does the spawn point pull him home, re-placed 25-45 units from it at its own Y. So place him on the floor of an open arena, not over a pit or on a ledge he can be driven off.

A full Player clone — the overlay allocates a whole Player struct and drives it through a fake controller, so he moves, blocks and swings on Link's own code. His health is healthCapacity >> 3, which at 16 units per heart is exactly TWICE your heart count: 6 HP on a 3-heart file, 40 on a 20-heart one. A Master Sword slash does 2, so he always takes one slash per heart you own — he never gets easier as you grow. Three things wake him, not one: coming within 120 units, Z-targeting him, or ANY projectile aimed his way from up to 4000 units, so an archer can start the fight from across a room. Waking him starts the mini-boss music. Until then he draws at alpha 95 and only fades in once engaged, one step every eight frames, so a Dark Link you have not approached is a translucent silhouette.

His own damage table, in HP against the health above. Biggoron's Sword jump attack is the hardest hit in the game at 8 (four hearts' worth), then Giant's Knife and its spin at 4, Light magic at 3, and Master Sword slashes, arrows of every kind, bombs, the hammer and Din's Fire at 2. The Kokiri Sword manages 1. Deku nuts, the boomerang and the hookshot deal ZERO and only stun him; ice magic freezes him for no damage; his shield and the Mirror Ray do nothing at all. He also holds his shield up and stops moving the whole time you are charging a magic attack, unless it is a spin attack.

object_torch2 ships a sheath display list, sDarkLinkSheathDL, that nothing in the game references. It is a consequence of the Player-clone wiring: his draw runs only Player_OverrideLimbDrawGameplayCommon, which — unlike the …Default the real player runs — hands no display list to the waist, hand or SHEATH limbs, and his own sheath limb carries none either. His sword and shield are modelled into his left- and right-hand limbs instead. Worth knowing before you retexture or replace from the resource list below: that one file is the only member of it a mod cannot make visible.

Model

What this actor draws, and where each piece lives in the archive. A mod replaces a piece by writing a file at the same path.

Skeletonobjects/object_torch2/gDarkLinkSkel
Animationobjects/gameplay_keep/gPlayerAnim_link_normal_wait

Objects loaded

An edit to a shared object reaches every actor that loads it.

Boss actors

Arwing · Barinade · Bongo Bongo · Dynamic Shadow · Ganon · Ganon's Organ and surroundings · Ganon's Tower Rubble Fragment · Ganondorf · Ganondorf's Cape · Gohma · Iron Knuckle · King Dodongo · Morpha · Phantom Ganon · Phantom Ganon's Lighting Attack · Twinrova · Volvagia (Flying) · Volvagia (Hole Form) · Volvagia Rocks and Bones