The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past/Chris Houlihan Room

History and Version Differences
Before the game's release, the American magazine Nintendo Power ran a competition, with the grand prize winner having their name on a secret room in the game, a room so secret that few would find it. The winner's name was Chris Houlihan.

The room itself is nothing special. It contains 45 blue Rupees (that's 225 Rupees!) and a telepathic tile that says, "My name is Chris Houlihan. This is my top secret room. Keep it between us, OK?" When you exit the room, you appear in front of Link's house.

It is believed that the room was intended as a failsafe; if there is a fatal error when the player changes room, the game dumps Link into the secret room. This means that there are other methods of entering the Chris Houlihan Room, although they are rare and do not work with any degree of accuracy.

Because the contest was held by Nintendo of America, Chris Houlihan's name only appears in the US version of the game. However, the room does exist (and can be accessed in the the same way) on all SNES versions of the game. In these other versions, the telepathic tile simply says that this is a secret room. In the GBA port of the game, the previously known ways of entering the room (explained below) don't work and no one has yet managed to enter it without cheating, even though the room does exist (as can be seen by either cheating or using glitches). Also the telepathic tile has been removed in the GBA port. Because the Wii Virtual Console version of the game is an almost exact port of the original, the room does exist and can be reached in this version as in the SNES versions.

How to Enter the Room
What causes the game to load the Chris Houlihan's room is not yet entirely understood. It seems to happen sometimes when Link falls down into a hole (one that leads somewhere) and is known to be possible from the secret passage hole next to Hyrule Castle, the faery hole that's east of the cemetery and the hole on top of the Pyramid of Power (where the final battle takes place). It might also be possible from other places.

After its discovery, many attempts to reproduce it lead to different empirical methods that had unreliable results. Finally, after studying carefully the game code and observing why the room was loaded sometimes, some players found a way to enter the room consistently. It seems that it has to do with Link's location on screen when he does a screen scrolling with the Pegasus Boots.

Here's a step by step reliable and easy method to reach the room. For this method, all you need are the Pegasus Boots and at least one Bomb:
 * 1) Start from the Sanctuary
 * 2) Exit the Sanctuary, and go one screen West
 * 3) Now go to the bottom of the screen (the path that leads to the small forest west of the castle) but don't change screens
 * 4) When you're close to the lower border of the screen, face up and drop a Bomb
 * 5) The Bomb blast should send you South but you won't change screens (see screenshot), and if you were close enough to the lower border, you'll be standing on the lowermost possible pixel (or maybe one up of this but it's not a problem)
 * 6) From there, start charging a dash with the Boots (while still facing up), and while it's charging, press Down to turn around and face down (this is to turn around without moving down)
 * 7) Keep charging until the dash starts and takes you to the next screen (to the South)
 * 8) From this screen, go to the East (towards Hyrule Castle) and change screen one last time
 * 9) When you enter the Hyrule Castle screen make your way to the secret passage hole (that's on the east side of the screen)
 * 10) Cut the bush, and jump in the hole from the south side (which is what you would do normally)
 * 11) You'll appear in the room

Common Misconceptions
Most of the other methods of reaching the room consist in starting from some point (mainly the Sanctuary or Kakariko Village) and then running with the boots to the secret passage.

Most people think that it has to be done as fast as possible, without hitting any wall or being hit by an enemy, when in fact these have nothing to do with it. The only thing that matters is Link's position when he does the last screen transition to the south. To be able to enter the room, you have to be dashing when this transition occurs and be on one of the two lowermost pixels of the screen. Because dashing with the boots moves you 4 pixels each frame, if you start dashing from a random position, there's a 1/2 chance to do it correctly, and a 1/2 chance of missing (hence the unreliability of the commonly used methods, but people tend to believe that it didn't work because they weren't fast enough). In the above method, the bomb technique ensures that Link is on one of the two lowermost pixels of the screen, and therefore dashing from this point will always trigger the room.

Note that you can try to be hit by many enemies, dash into as many walls as you want and walk most of the time (except when doing the south transition) and it will work the same.

Pro Action Replay Method
You can also use a cheat to reach the room: choose to Start From Sanctuary, and activate the "Walk Through Walls" cheat code. Walk through the door to the south. If you succeeded you'll end up in the room with levers. Once there walk through the wall to the east until you reach a room with lots of blue Rupees.