[ShadowOne333]

Adding heart drops would be cool.  That's something I can look into. 

Careful though, that could break the game in half since we have the Life/Heal spell in there

[IcePenguin]

Careful though, that could break the game in half since we have the Life/Heal spell in there

Ah!  Indeed it would.  Well, that idea was short-lived, ha ha.  Thanks for pointing that out before it was too late!   

[IAmCaptPlanet]

here is my (very) shoddy mockup you can see what you think.

https://ibb.co/x1gYN61

heart drops are no biggie, i believe someone mentioned changing to only one size magic jar, and using the other for heart. it's all kind of redundant, because most of the time i get a jar i am using the life spell with it, and it's the same difference, it would just be seamless adding without having to cast the spell,

also, what did you think of changing the Bagu tile slightly?

---edit---
you could make it where a "heart item" just instanlty cast a low level "life" spell

that would actually make the game harder for people who are so good that they never lose life, because now they wouldnt have as much magic. balancing issues are hard, you guys are doing a great job, btw

[ShadowOne333]

also, what did you think of changing the Bagu tile slightly?

What exactly do you mean with this?

[IAmCaptPlanet]

What exactly do you mean with this?

the warp tile that takes you to Bagu, alter the pixels slightly, or maybe mirror it, so Bagu's secret "house" looks slightly different from all the trees around it

you know, maybe just add a tiny visual cue that that tile is special, but also not hardly enough to even notice it

[IcePenguin]

here is my (very) shoddy mockup you can see what you think.

https://ibb.co/x1gYN61

also, what did you think of changing the Bagu tile slightly?

Not sure that mock-up would work.  Definitely not enough space in the HUD to fit that many letters there.  There is a whole row of space at the top that could be utilized, but again, it comes down to how many gfx tiles are available to work with.  Most everything has a purpose, and finding ways to get extra gfx tiles can be quite a challenge.

As for Bagu's tile, it just uses a normal forest tile like any other.  The world map is restricted to 16 unique terrain types, so to give Bagu his own type, another would have to be sacrificed, or the data would have to be expanded to allow more than 16.  It'd be more trouble than it's worth, to be honest.  Trax has done this expansion for his own hack, but the scope of that goes far beyond any Zelda II hack, yet. 

Sorry to crush your ideas like that.    It's just there are many limitations to what can be done without extensive ASM changes to the game.  And expanding things can get tricky.

[IAmCaptPlanet]

https://ibb.co/n3m8NGC

here was a mock-up for Bagu's house. probably not worth the effort as you say.


https://ibb.co/1v5H5sb

here was an idea for another more streamlined hud, especially if the level up menu is "reachable" at any time, if you wanted to check your levels just go to the menu

---edit--- also do away with the "L" for life in it too

[GTM604]

im getting bad getaway on the links

[IAmCaptPlanet]

my bagu idea
https://imgur.com/HD3lmDJ

trimmed Hud
https://imgur.com/Pp9xco4

sorry about that, i used to post and it would let the pic show in the actual post.
February 19, 2019, 12:28:20 am - (Auto Merged - Double Posts are not allowed before 7 days.)i had a kind of neat idea.

if you were standing near the warp tile to Bagu's place and paused the game, when playing it could be a forest tile and when paused if it could be replaced by a town tile.

thats just a rando thought, lol

[IcePenguin]

Here is a hack to add a [visual] cap to the life counter in the inventory menu, as well as the counter on the lives remaining splash screen when you die.  You can still gain more than 9 lives, but the counters will only ever display 9 in the menu.  This is to prevent tile oddities when going beyond the counter's limit.

This hack will replace the previous one that displays the inventory menu life counter in decimal rather than hexadecimal.  So remove that one first, because this new one will need more space, and the old code would just be wasted space.


At 0x2172, paste this code:  20 60 AC

At 0x2C70, paste this code:

AD 9E 07 AD 00 07 8D 9E 07 A9 09 CD 9E 07 10 06 A9 0A 8D 9E 07 60 EE 9E 07 AD 9E 07 CE 9E 07 60

This is setting up a new unused byte in RAM at $79E, to act as the visual cap for the counter in the inventory menu - and later on the splash screen.  When the real value of lives ($700) goes to 9, or above, the menu counter will visually stay at 9 by using the value at $79E.  It also displays the counter the correct way in decimal, instead of hexadecimal.


Next, we have to move a portion of the permanent Link doll hack 2 bytes to the left.  We need the extra space, so let's do that first.  If you are using a clean rom, you can skip this part, but for Redux you'll have to do it.

At 0x1E828, paste this code:  20 57 FF

At 0x1FF67, paste this code:  EE 00 07 EE 95 07 60


Finally, is the visual cap for the splash screen life counter.

At 0x1C3E4, paste this code:  20 5E FF

At 0x1FF6E, paste this code:

AD 9E 07 A9 09 CD 00 07 10 01 60 AD 00 07 8D 9E 07 60

As you can see, there wasn't much free space here, but there was enough to fit this new code.  Since we already initialized a byte in RAM ($79E) for the inventory screen, we will use that here, as well.  Like before, if the real value of lives ($700) is at 9, or above, it will load the value at $79E, which has already been capped, and that's it.  If it is below 9 lives, it loads the value at $700, and stores it in $79E.  This is required to keep the values updated between deaths or upon loading the save file.

That's it! 

my bagu idea
https://imgur.com/HD3lmDJ

I actually like the "possible #1" design you made.  A single tiny house makes a lot of sense! 

[ShadowOne333]

Nice, dude!
Just added the Life cap hack into Redux.
So many nice hacks, for sure I will never go back to vanilla Zelda II once this is done, I can tell you that

I think all that's left is just the Elimination Mode Up/Down inputs, and Game Over one too, and then Zelda II can be released as a proper hack, alongside all it's optional patches


Oh also, I will put some additional info that IcePenguin sent me regarding some title screen changes, just so we have almost all the changes and hacks made to Zelda II Redux documented in this thread:

Here's a thought...  For Shadow of Night, I made a moon for the title screen.  Really adds life to it, I think.  If you want to use it, you totally can!  I added it to show you what is looks like.  If you do add it, the grey color in the mountains work wells with the moon. 



If you want to use it, here are the tiles:



Then go to 0x167D5 and paste:

2F 03 22 28

And at 0x167F5 paste:

2F 05 22 30

I changed the sprite priority so it will appear behind the logo and scroll text.

[Shade Aurion]

Awesome! I feel one more thing should be added to your list though ShadowOne333.
The death flash. If you removed the flash and made it a plain red screen to people with epilepsy didn't have seizures triggered I feel like that would be a really nice addition too

That title screen and the tiles for the logo look great :3

[ShadowOne333]

Awesome! I feel one more thing should be added to your list though ShadowOne333.
The death flash. If you removed the flash and made it a plain red screen to people with epilepsy didn't have seizures triggered I feel like that would be a really nice addition too

That title screen and the tiles for the logo look great :3

I think changes like those were implemented for one of Zelda II's re-releases through Virtual Console.
Although, I can't remember which one implemented them.
I also think those very changes have been documented, if someone find them, be sure to post them so I can take a look at them. Anything that makes Zelda II a more enjoyable experience for everyone is welcome, and changes like this that avoid epilepsy is something worth taking note of.

[IcePenguin]

Exciting!  Seems to be nearing completion - maybe days!   

I did some testing with the game over menu, but it stumps me at every turn.  I'm still very curious what DarkSamus decides to do with the menu, since he showed interest in simplifying them.  The hack he did for the File Select screen was awesome!

Oh, if you want, I can help play test the hack.  Possibly work out any missed bugs, or anything else that pops up.

Awesome! I feel one more thing should be added to your list though ShadowOne333.
The death flash. If you removed the flash and made it a plain red screen to people with epilepsy didn't have seizures triggered I feel like that would be a really nice addition too

Great idea!  I was just thinking about this actually.  Doing a lot of tests with the game over inputs, I had to watch that screen like a million times.    

February 19, 2019, 12:18:34 pm - (Auto Merged - Double Posts are not allowed before 7 days.)
Found the data on the death flashing.

At 0x1C9FA is the palette.  12 16 2A 16

It cycles between 12 blue, 16 red, 2A green, then 16 red.

[ShadowOne333]

I found a hack that apparently removes the flashing:
https://www.romhacking.net/hacks/740/
This also includes modifying not only the death flash, but also the flashes for when you learn a spell and when you kill a boss.
Can someone test that one out and let me know exactly what it does on those flashes?

I am not too sure about completely removing the flashes though.
I would much rather have it be similar to what the GameCube version did, with flashes of red instead of different colours, like this:
https://www.movie-censorship.com/report.php?ID=771541



And this is the original for comparison:

Spoiler:

Shouldn't be too hard to re-implement from scratch, but I know there should be some documentation as to what bytes does the Virtual Console releases change, so we can more easily look into it.

[IcePenguin]

Yikes, put those things in spoilers, ha ha.   

Just change the flashing palette at 0x1C9FA to 16 16 06 06.  It will be a subtle flashing between red and dark red.  Doesn't hurt the eyes.

[ShadowOne333]

Yikes, put those things in spoilers, ha ha.   

Just change the flashing palette at 0x1C9FA to 16 16 06 06.  It will be a subtle flashing between red and dark red.  Doesn't hurt the eyes.

Look what I found
The patches that are applied for the NES Mini.
Reddit thread:
https://www.reddit.com/r/nesclassicmods/comments/699hgj/nintendo_patches_games_inmemory_even_on_the_nes/

Patches:
http://www.rendezvo.us/nes/nesce_mempatches.zip

The one for Zelda II is called "CLV-P-NAASE.ips".
Could you try applying it over vanilla Zelda II and see what addresses the patch modifies for me, please?

[IcePenguin]

Here is what it changes:

0x2A00:  02 03 02 03  (darker magic flash)

0x169C8:  ED E1 DE F4 ED E1 E2 EB DD  ("THE THIRD")

0x1C9FA:  35 36 35 36  (Bright pink death flash)

0x1FDF7:  FF (not sure)

[ShadowOne333]

Here is what it changes:

0x2A00:  02 03 02 03

0x169C8:  ED E1 DE F4 ED E1 E2 EB DD

0x1C9FA:  35 36 35 36

0x1FDF7:  FF

Oh so it does modify the flashes!
Nice!

0x2A00 and 0x1C9FA seem to be related to flashes.

0x169C8 seems to be a change of text in the Introduction text at the title screen, and 0x1FDF7, I'm not too sure, but I think it changes something related to the tilemapping of a certain tile in the Continue/Save screen.

What about the hack found here:
https://www.romhacking.net/hacks/740/

Can you tell me which addresses it changes, please?

[IcePenguin]

Here is what it changes:

0x2A00:  12 12 12 12  (blue magic flash)

0x1C9FA:  16 16 16 16  (red death flash)

That's it!