A Link to the Past Cuccos: 35 Hits Until the Flock Attacks

Thirty-five. That is how many hits a Cucco in A Link to the Past will take before it calls for backup. The game counts each one on that bird, squawks for every hit up to the limit, and once the count reaches 35 the bird starts summoning. From then on, a fresh attacker flies in from the edge of the screen about four times a second, and it keeps coming until you leave.

None of that needs to be taken on faith. The Cucco routine is laid out instruction by instruction in two places: the zelda3 decompilation of the US release and the annotated disassembly of the Japanese 1.0 cartridge, and both put the trigger at the same number. This guide is about the SNES game, read from that code: what counts toward the 35, what the flock does to you, how to shut it off, where the birds live, and the one Cucco in Kakariko that talks back.

Thirty-five hits, counted on one bird

Start with the bird itself, because it cannot die. On every frame its routine runs, the Cucco rewrites its own health to 255. No damage number in the game finishes one, Silver Arrows included, so there is no way out of a bad decision by killing the evidence.

The hit counter is a single byte belonging to that one sprite. Each registered hit adds one and plays a squawk, up to 35. After that a hit no longer adds a squawk (the Japanese disassembly labels that branch too_hurt_to_cluck) and the summon check starts firing; from then on the bird squawks each time it summons an attacker instead. Three consequences fall straight out of that:

• The count is per bird. Hit three Cuccos twenty times each and nothing happens. Sixty hits, no flock.
• A fresh bird starts at zero. The routine that loads a sprite's properties clears the counter, so a Cucco that has been unloaded and loaded again has forgotten everything.
• You can catch a fleeing one. After a hit, a Cucco runs directly away from Link at 1 pixel a frame along its main axis and only re-aims every 32 frames. Link walks at 1.5 pixels a frame, as our movement speed guide lays out, so walking it down works.

You can also just pick one up. A carried Cucco panics and squawks in your hands, and a thrown one bounces off any wall it hits, but neither adds to the count. It does not let you glide either: Zelda Wiki's Cucco Gliding section says gliding originated in Link's Awakening.

What counts as a hit

The Cucco does not care what you hit it with, only whether the damage system registered a hit. That system reads the Cucco's row of the game's damage table, and a hit that comes out at zero damage never sets the flag the Cucco checks. Here is what the Cucco's row says:

The Hammer goes through the same check as the sword, which is why it is on the list. The damage guide covers how that table is built for the rest of Hyrule's monsters.

What the flock actually does

Once a Cucco's counter reads 35, the summon check runs on every frame the bird is active. It only goes ahead on one frame in sixteen, and only when Link is outdoors. At roughly 60 frames a second, that is about four new attackers a second. Each one:

• Appears on a random edge of the screen. The routine picks top-and-bottom or left-and-right, then a random point along that edge.
• Is aimed once, at the spot where Link was standing when it spawned. It never turns. It moves at 2 pixels a frame along its main axis, which outpaces Link's 1.5-pixel walk but not his 4-pixel dash.
• Flies through walls. The attacker's movement code has no tile collision check, so trees, fences and houses do not stop it.
• Shrugs off your weapons. Its routine never runs the sword check, and it sets the flag that stops arrows, bombs, boomerangs and rods from damaging it.
• Costs half a heart per peck in any mail. The Cucco's contact damage is class 1, which the game's own table sets at half a heart in the Green, Blue and Red Mail alike.

Each peck also runs the standard hit on Link. That means 19 frames of knockback with your controls locked and a 58-frame invulnerability window, the same numbers our i-frames guide pulls from the code. That window is the real limit on how fast the flock can hurt you: roughly half a heart a second at most, however many birds are on screen. There is no mercy rule, though. The pecks take the ordinary damage path, so if they empty your hearts, Link dies exactly as he would to any enemy, and our death guide covers what a bottled Fairy saves and where a Game Over sends you.

The flock does have a ceiling. The summon only places attackers in sprite slots 0 to 10, eleven of the game's sixteen, so it stops growing once those slots are full of attackers and whatever else is on the screen.

Four ways to make it stop

The routine has no timer. As long as the angry Cucco is loaded and Link is outside, it keeps summoning. So you have to do something:

1. Walk into a building. The summon check quits whenever Link is indoors, so no new attacker can appear, and when you step back out the game reloads the overworld's sprites, so the bird comes back with its counter at zero. In Kakariko, the nearest open door will do.
2. Leave the area. A bird that gets loaded again comes back with its counter at zero.
3. Pick up the angry Cucco. While you are carrying it, its routine returns before it reaches the summon check, so no new attackers spawn until you throw it. The ones already in the air keep coming, so this buys time rather than peace.
4. Wear the Magic Cape. With the Cape on, the code that applies damage to Link throws each peck away and clears the stun as well. At normal magic cost it drains a point of magic every 4 frames, about 8.5 seconds from a full bar per our magic guide.

Where the Cuccos are

The overworld sprite lists in the disassembly place sprite 0x0B, the Cucco, on these screens. The screen names are the disassembly's own.

Some more are indoors, where the flock can never form. Zelda Wiki puts four Cuccos in the Sweeping Lady's house, west of the Bug-Catching Kid's house. Only one room in the game places Cuccos in its sprite list, room 0x108, and it places exactly four; the entrance randomizer's door data calls that building the Chicken House. Its pot data hides a fifth Cucco under a pot. Two more Cuccos are hidden under pots in other Kakariko rooms, and one of them is the special bird in the last section.

If you want to see what the 35-hit rule does without getting hurt, the Sweeping Lady's house is the place to practise. Her four Cuccos count hits like any others, and nothing comes for you indoors.

Boney Birds are Cuccos with a Dark World coat

The birds in the Village of Outcasts are called Boney Birds. Zelda Wiki's Boney Bird page, citing page 88 of Nintendo's official Player's Guide, says they are harmless unless Link hits them about 100 times, and it flags that number as unconfirmed.

The sprite list settles it. The Village of Outcasts places three copies of sprite 0x0B, the same ID Kakariko uses for its Cuccos, and that ID runs one routine in both worlds. A Boney Bird's trigger is 35, not 100. Zelda Wiki's Cucco page also says the Dark World birds react to attacks with the same movements, sounds and flock behaviour. The graphics change, the bird does not.

On the Game Boy Advance version, sprinkling Magic Powder on the Riddle Quest's Cucco carving can give it the colours of this Dark World counterpart, per Zelda Wiki's Wooden Statue page. Our Riddle Quest guide has that and the Cucco riddle that starts the quest.

Magic Powder and the Cucco that talks back

On a Cucco, Magic Powder normally does nothing: its entry in the Cucco's damage row is zero, so it neither transforms the bird nor counts as a hit. There is one exception, and the game checks for it by room.

Zelda Wiki places it in the house of the Informant Woman in the blue dress, directly west of the Street Merchant. You will not see a Cucco when you walk in, because the room's sprite list has none. The room's pot data does: lift the pots and a Cucco comes out of one. Sprinkle Powder on that Cucco and the powder routine sees a Cucco, an indoor room and the right room number, and flags the bird. On its next frame the Cucco's own routine turns it into sprite 0x3D, the ID of one of the village's two informant women (the decompilation calls it OldSnitchLady), with a flag set so it runs a separate routine for the transformed Cucco. After a short pause she speaks: "You turned me into a human. I can even speak!" Then she accuses Link of being the one who keeps teasing her friends and warns him that the Weathercock is always watching.

That screenshot comes from the Game Boy Advance release, which keeps the joke. The Light World guide covers the Weathercock in Kakariko's plaza, where the Flute's bird comes from.

Another Kakariko resident reacts to Powder too. Sprinkle the Sweeping Lady outside her house and she turns into a Fairy, which Zelda Wiki sources to page 131 of the Player's Guide. The damage table agrees: her row sends Magic Powder to the column that converts a sprite into a Fairy. Zelda Wiki adds that she is back to normal when you leave the area and return. Everything else we have written about the game is on the A Link to the Past coverage hub.

Quick Action Checklist

• Count to 34 and stop. The flock triggers when one bird's own counter reaches 35. Spreading hits across several birds is safe.
• Do not bother with Powder or medallions on an ordinary Cucco. Neither counts toward 35.
• Treat a bomb as just another hit. There is no explosive shortcut to the flock.
• Sidestep, do not outrun. Each attacker is aimed once at where you stood and flies at 2 pixels a frame. Your walk is 1.5 and your dash is 4.
• Duck through the nearest door to end it. The summon never runs indoors.
• Pick the angry bird up if you need a breather. Nothing new spawns while you hold it.
• Wear the Cape to take no damage while you walk to safety.
• Practise in the Sweeping Lady's house. Four Cuccos, and no flock can form indoors.
• Find the talking Cucco under a pot in the blue-dress Informant Woman's house, west of the Street Merchant, and sprinkle Magic Powder on it.
• Expect the same rules in the Dark World. Boney Birds are Cuccos, and they trigger at 35, not 100.