The greatest losing streak in the history of the Zelda series has been ended after 25 years thanks to a Majora's Mask fan who provided the perfect conditions for the game's most unfortunate NPC to finally triumph - and it still took 30,000 attempts.
'The Legend of Blue Dog' stems from Majora's Mask's dog racing minigame. In that game, Link can pick a dog to bet on, gaining rewards if his pick does well in the next race. There are 14 dogs to bet on; four white, three gray, three beige, two brown, one gold, and one blue. Each dog's chance of winning isn't a simple one-in-fourteen, however - their color and condition will both affect their performance in the race.
Every time the dogs are loaded in, they're granted a condition that can augment their speed - essentially, the number of frames that each dog moves every second. Four dogs will get a good condition, increasing their speed a little, while five will get a bad condition, which slows them down. Those conditions build upon the dogs' base speeds, which depend on their color - the gold dog is the fastest, with a base speed of six, while the White and brown dogs are a little slower, with a speed of 5.5. The gray and beige dogs have a speed of five, but the unfortunate blue dog clocks in at 20% slower than that, with a speed of just four.
Blue Dog is so famously slow that he's become something of a legend within the game's community, a literal underdog widely considered to be incapable of winning the race. As explained in a video from Vidya James, there was thought to be just one, extremely rare, means of securing a W for Blue Dog. In the game's code, the race is divided into three zones - the first half of the track, the second half, and the finish line. These three zones intersect in a small area at the line, and if a dog is found to be in all three zones at once, it wins the race.
The problem here is that Nintendo's zone drawing went a little outside the lines, and a single, extremely thin part of the finish line zone extends across to the other side of the track. The dogs move at a fixed number of frames, so on the vast majority of occasions, they'll simply skip over the fake finish zone. But between jostling for position and their augmented stats, it's theoretically possible for the game to read their position as directly on top of the finish line, even though they've still got half a race to go. If that happens, the race end jingle will play, and whichever dog triggered it will win the race, no matter what their position when they eventually cross the actual finish line. This can happen legitimately, but it is only known to have happened four times in the 25 years since Majora's Mask was released. So, could it be used to grant Blue Dog a victory?
The short answer is yes, but even then, it's pretty lucky. Vidya James determined that there are more than a trillion possible ways that the race can play out, making it impossible to accomplish without some help. With that in mind, one of their viewers, Falkush, created a script to allow them to simulate thousands of races in relatively little time. It still took more than 8,000 attempts, but eventually, Blue Dog coincided with the fake finish zone, claiming its first win in recorded history.
That 'win,' however, could be argued to not really count, and Falkush had more work to do. In one of those 8,000 runs, Blue Dog claimed a legitimate 4th place - much better than its paltry speed stat would ever normally allow for. With that in mind, with enough races run, could Blue Dog ever actually come first?
Falkush decided to min-max the entire field, creating a new script to lock down a game save where the fastest dogs - white, brown, and gold - all had the worst conditions possible, and the slower dogs, including Blue Dog, had their speed enhanced. With the normal leaders of the pack heavily hindered, Blue Dog would have a better chance of winning if his only real competition were the much slower gray and beige dogs.
Blue Dog began moving up the rankings, securing a second-place finish. Then another, and another. Admittedly, Falkush was running 4,000 races per day across two machines to secure these results, but they suggested a first place could be possible. Eventually, after 30,000 attempts, Blue Dog found an inside line as he jostled with two of the gray dogs, and finally claimed the win. Vidya James points out that this is unlikely to ever be replicated by actual human hands away from an emulator, but regardless, Falkush's efforts have put a 25-year myth to rest, and ended perhaps the greatest losing streak in video game history.
Check out our list of the best Zelda games.
