A Link to the Past
Magic Meter
The magic meter in ALttP holds the amount of magic that Link currently has. This determines how much he can use magical items.
Mechanics
Link begins the game with the ability to fill his magic meter and use magic items, but his meter will start out empty. There are two ways to fill up magic:
- Collecting magic jars. A small jar will fill 16 MP (1/8 of the meter) and a large jar will fill the meter completely.
- After defeating a boss, the game will fill Link's magic. This does not apply to Agahnim2 or Ganon.
A full meter will hold 128 MP. There are 10 magic-using items in the game:
| Item | MP Cost |
|---|---|
| Bombos medallion | 32 |
| Cane of byrna | 16 MP upfront + 64 frame delay + 4 MP every 24 frames |
| Cane of somaria | 8 |
| Ether medallion | 32 |
| Fire rod | 16 |
| Lamp | 4 |
| Ice rod | 16 |
| Magic cape | 1 MP every 4 frames |
| Magic powder | 8 |
| Quake medallion | 32 |
Antifairies will drain 8 MP from Link's magic meter if he bumps into one, whether he has the normal meter or half magic. This mechanic also has less respect for Link's i-frames than traditional damage does, meaning antifairies can quickly chain this magic drain in certain circumstances.
Half magic upgrade
The half magic upgrade is an upgrade to Link's magic meter. Rather than expanding the magic meter, it makes magic items cost half as much MP to use as they do with the normal meter. For example, the fire rod costs 16 MP per shot with the normal meter, but with half magic, a fire rod shot only costs 8 MP. For the cape, its magic consumption rate is halved from 1 MP every 4 frames to 1 MP every 8 frames.
Due to refill frames and how each magic use has a lowered MP cost, it generally saves time to have half magic. But it costs too much time to grab to be particularly worthwhile in most non-100% or Max% speedrun routes. In some runs, it can be used as a safety item to make some of the boss fights easier or more forgiving. It is a requirement in all 100% speedruns.
Location
Half magic is gotten from sprinkling magic powder at the altar of the magic bat. This typically requires a couple of things:
- Magic powder or mushroom and a way to activate fake powder
- The hammer to access the ledge hop down to the bat on the Smithy house screen OR the mitts to access the peg field screen and then the mirror to warp to the Light World on the other side of the hammer peg on the Smithy house screen.
Using mitts and mirror doesn't help you skip hammer for accessing half magic because in the vanilla game, the hammer is required for getting the mitts. But the mitts and mirror route is still potentially faster.
With the use of major glitches, the bat cave can be reached without hammer or mitts and mirror in a number ways, but having the ability to powder (with real powder or not) is still necessary.