Can anyone else replicate the issue with the "Keep Exp At Gameover" patch?
Actually, this isn't the 1st time someone mentioned this...
(Seems like it got missed at the time.)
I encountered a problem with one of the extra patches.
The "keep EXP at Game Over" patch will not allow you to save, either manually or at Game Over.
The results were slightly different depending on the emulator (none of them all that good):
Best case was QuickNES, where selecting Save did nothing. You could then choose to continue.
Most others, like FCEUX, it hung there forever.
Worst case, on the NES Classic, it threw up a C6 error and wiped my saves.
Picking Continue first works like it should.
I tried it myself and got the same results, it just freezes (with FCEUX at least, dunno about the others).
Clean ROM = OK
Redux = OK
Keep Exp = "Continue" works as expected (exp stays). Confirming a "Save" though, causes the game to stop responding.
Redux+Keep Exp = Same as above. Though if you open the "Manual Save Menu" and choose "Continue" the exp resets to 0.
Attempting a "Manual Save" is the same as a "Game Over Save", it just hangs after confirming it.
The "Restart Same Screen at Game Over" patch, coincidentally
has the "Keep Exp at Game Over" patch included &
this patchworks perfectly fine (saving works as it should, too).
It's just the separate (Keep Exp) patch that seems to have a problem.
(Shadow, you said you'd add that detail to your readme, but you forgot to
mention it in the OP, which is the only thing people can see at the moment.
I only found that out by digging through this thread.)
Hopefully it's not too late to suggest this, but...
I've also got
a bunch of text that I think could use some more tweaking.
For some reason that opening bit of story on the title screen still mentions "the power of the third Triforce of Courage".
(Leaving it like that kinda gives the impression that there's more than 1 "Triforce of Courage", which is obviously wrong.)
Due to lack of space to rewrite that, just removing "third" from that line and putting "Triforce" in its place should suffice.
[The BOLD CAPS are what's written in Redux, while the text/"italic quotes" below them are my thoughts/suggestions.]
"BALANCE THE THREE LEVELS AND TRUE POWER WILL BE YOURS!"
This was meant to be a hint for leveling up in the Japanese version.
Since we use a different system, he should probably say something else.
(Nothing immediately comes to mind though.. so I'll just repeat an earlier suggestion.)
Maybe have him mention that you can save with Up+A instead?
"ONLY WITH A HAMMER YOU CAN BREAK ROCKS BLOCKING THE WAY..."
"You'll need a hammer to break rocks blocking the way..."
"I DON'T HAVE MORE TO TEACH YOU. GO, AND TAKE CARE."
"I have nothing more to teach you. Go now and take care."
"GORIYA OF TANTARI DESERT STOLE THE GODDESS STATUE."
Change "the" to "our".
(Translations suggest that it belongs to the town,
but since we can't fit that, "our" sounds a bit better.)
"OH! THAT'S THE GODDESS STATUE! GO SEE GRANDPA!"
Same as above, change "the" to "our" (for consistency).
Should say "Come see my Grandpa". Sounds kinda odd otherwise.
"BEFORE LEAVING, COME TO MY HOUSE AND SEE GRANDPA."
Like the above, it should say "my" Grandpa.
"GANON'S MINIONS HAVE SLIPPED INTO TOWN CROWDS."
"Ganon's minions are hidden among the towns crowds."
"I LOST MY MIRROR."
Move "my" to the 1st line. (...honestly, I just think it'd look better, but I suppose either is fine.)
However, adding a little more detail to that would definitely be good, something like:
"It should be in town somewhere."
I mean, you never know how crazy they could get when hiding something back then.
It could be in a cave or another town, maybe you need to trade/talk with someone else?
I think a little hint suggesting that it can be found nearby is reasonable.
(Especially since it's under a random table you wouldn't think you'd be able to check.)
"I'LL TEACH YOU THE MAGIC TO RESTORE LIFE."
Should say "your" life.
It's a tad vague otherwise and could give the wrong idea as to what it can do.
(Like, maybe it "could" heal a sick person for example. Which we know it can't.)
"THE RAFT IS IN THE ISLE TEMPLE TO THE SOUTH."
"There's a raft in the temple on a small island to the south."
That just sounds a bit more natural to me.
The original line just feels like something you'd read in a walkthrough.
(Or maybe the kid that says that is just self-aware & felt like getting to the point.)
"SEE THE SAGE AT DARUNIA BEFORE YOU GO TO MAZE ISLAND."
Oh boy, this line. The text limitations really makes this 1 a pain.
The issue here is that it's a bit misleading, because the real thing
a player needs to be warned about isn't the island itself, but rather
the Temple on said island. As it is actually impossible to beat the
boss there without the spell that sage teaches you.
But you can't actually learn said spell without going to Maze Island at some point
(as you need to find a child there and bring them back to town first).
So I came up with 2 different lines for this, use whichever you think sounds better.
"Learn from the sage in Darunia, then go to Maze Island Temple."
"Don't go to Maze Island Temple till you've met the sage in Darunia."
(I'd rather not have used "till", but it was all I could think of to fit that message in there.)
"EVERYONE FLED FROM KASUTO WHEN THE MINIONS OF GANON ATTACKED."
"Everyone fled from Kasuto when the fire nation Ganon's Minions attacked."
Sounds like less of a mouthful.
"I WON'T TEACH YOU UNTIL YOU ARE READY."
Ah yes, how can we forget about the "Super Vague Old Man Statements"™.
I really think this should be changed, might as well be up front about the details.
Otherwise you'd just end up with someone thinking:
"So.. what? Do I need to level up more? Get some new item? TALK TO ME OLD MAN!".
That's why I suggest taking the direct approach:
"You'll need more magic containers for me to teach you."
(Some people do mention "magic containers" elsewhere, so it's not like it'd be out of place either.)
I suppose there's also this alternate version I thought of:
"You don't have enough magic power to learn this spell."
But I feel like that could be mistaken to mean "level up your magic stat",
which isn't true. ...but that's up to you I suppose.
"THE MAGIC KEY, IT READS... TREASURE OF KASUTO."
Now this is a strange one. As it's written on a wall, in a random empty house,
identical to every other empty house, fairly deep into the destroyed Kasuto.
The only other thing in Kasuto is the sage and he's in the 1st house in town,
you also likely won't have the Cross yet, so you'd be pelted by a bunch of
invisible enemies giving you no incentive to go any further into town anyway.
If you wanna keep it close to the original, try this slight rewrite:
"A message? It says... "The Magic Key is Kasuto's Treasure"."
If you don't mind changing it to something else, how about this?
"Kasuto's Treasure: The Magic Key. It can open any door."
Or maybe end it with: "It can be used endlessly." instead.
Since it originally doesn't say anything that warrants it being so well hidden,
I figure making it a hint as to what it actually does would be reasonable.
Lastly, yes, everything I've written here should fit within the dialogue limit.
(It was... "6 rows with 11 characters each" right?)
Also I've got some questions/ideas/thoughts about this that I wanna toss out there.
Of course, some of this might be considered "outside the scope" for this project,
but I figured I'd just keep all my thoughts together & see if they'd go anywhere.
So rather than having all this be "Could you add this to Redux?", maybe think
of it as me asking "Is this idea reasonable/possible, in general?" instead
and figure things out from there.
- Would it be possible to create/add some kind of map system?
I think this is the only Zelda game that doesn't have a map of some kind.
Even Zelda 1 & Link's Awakening (Gameboy) were able to show us maps...
and they were much more limited than Zelda 2 was.
At the very least, it'd be great for dealing with the Temples.
- ...what about a World Map though?
Or at least some way to help identify different places (other than towns).
Throughout the game people will mention specific areas, like the
"XXX Desert", "XXX Swamp" or "XXX Temple", etc. It's usually more of
a guess if you found the right place, but you're never really sure.
Is it possible to add a sign to the start of each temple for example?
Maybe edit the signs in some towns to mention nearby areas?
Perhaps you could use the 2nd signs at the opposite end
of said towns for these extra directions instead?
(Unless they both point to the same message, rather than 2 separate ones...)
- Can you give some short invincibility to Link when opening doors/picking up items?
You're briefly unable to do anything while a door is being unlocked
(or picking up, say, a Heart Container or a major item)
and since enemies can just phase through doors in this world,
it basically gives them a free attack on you in these situations.
Now, sure, you could say "just don't push them back/open it yet",
but you really only have 2 choices in a fight: Move Forward or Back Off.
The problem is, when you're fighting something like an Iron Knuckle
or a Fokka (anything fast or with a projectile really), you really don't
want to Back Off, as you'd be completely open then.
If you could walk backward without turning around that would be something...
but I figure having a small amount of invincibility in those moments would be simpler.
- Would it be possible to disable random encounters?
This 1 is more of a "for fun/out of curiosity" kinda question.
Certain areas already seem to have it disabled (like Death Mountain or Maze Island),
so I was wondering if that could just be applied globally as well?
(...oh wait, new idea!)
Could you edit an item to, say, temporarily disable random encounters?
For example: Maybe the effect could last like 10 seconds, then have a cooldown that's
either time based (like 30 seconds) or location based (get to a town to 'recharge' it).
Perhaps you could use the flute? I mean, it already gets rid of that giant.. spider.. thing,
so having it "repel" random enemies doesn't seem like that big of a logic stretch does it?
- Get rid of "road encounters"?
Since I'm on the topic of enemy encounters...
Could you just have it skip an enemy encounter when you're on the road?
As it just gives you a single, empty screen anyway, it feels unnecessary.
Possibly get rid of/change the pure bubble/fireball screens too.
As far as the "bubble screen" is concerned, it just feels like a cheap way
to get some "knock you into a pit" deaths early on. I mean, they cover the
entire screen while you're in the area & go through the floor, all you can do
is try to move between them and pray you don't get hit weirdly.
With the pure fireball screen, my only real issue with it is that you sometimes
get hit by them when you're at the end of the screen and trying to leave.
Simply because it decided it wanted to randomly spawn right on the border where
you can't see/react to them. Unlike the bubbles, at least you can block these.. usually.
(Though you probably can't do much about that... I thought I'd mention it anyway.)
- Make lives not permanent, but re-spawn after a game over instead?
I recall there being a discussion over the "Life Doll" change a while back, so I did some thinking.
The original issue people had with the "Life Dolls" was that they vanished after you collected
them and if when you got a Game Over you couldn't go back and get them again.
This led to the Redux Solution™, which was to just let you keep the lives after a game over.
But what if you went in the other direction? Keep them as temporary additions, but make it
so they come back after a Game Over.. is that possible?
I actually like them being a permanent boost, so this is more of an "alternate" suggestion, if you will.
Even if you don't use it here, options are always good to have.. right?
- Is it possible to use the left side of the textbox for another (12'th) letter?
Simple question really. I can't help but notice how textboxes always have that clean.. empty.. space.. on the left.
Is it just, like, inaccessible for some reason? Or does it cause some weird glitches when stuff is written there?
I'm sure you looked into to this ages ago, so I'm just curious is all.
- Can your exp be permanently saved?
Obviously you can "continue" with it, with an optional patch,
but could it also carry over into a save file as well, as a different patch?
Again... just curious if that can be a thing at all, or not.
- Can you use a different sound when picking up keys/smaller items?
Okay, yeah, I'm being rather nitpicky with this last one.
But it's kinda hard to ignore now that I've heard it so much.
As far as I can tell when you grab a key (or a small item drop)
it uses the same sound as the Sword Beam (or maybe it's just similar).
Considering just how much you end up attacking in this game
(or, hell, just trying to inspect things/talk to people in towns)
could you find a different sound to replace item grabbing with?
I was initially gonna also suggest "could you disable the sword beam while in towns?"
but then I remembered the possibility that some people could be fakes in later towns...
So, hmm... I dunno what to do here. (I just feel like that sound gets used far too much.)
Heh... sorry for the super long post, I wasn't expecting to have this much to say myself.
But this mod looked promising when I heard about it, so I wanted to try to be thorough...
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Topic: Zelda II Redux (Read 386435 times)